A ghetto sport
January 29th, 2008 by dewsburyPicture the scene: 1970s New York plagued by gang warfare, drug dens, poverty, looting and unemployment.
Sirens are heard each night as another person is killed, or another building burned down.
The Bronx and Brooklyn districts of “the big apple” are slums for Black and Hispanic minorities.
Yet from this deprivation is born today’s biggest selling music genre: Hip Hop.
Fast forward more than thirty years and the break-beat style of music, the fashion and the graffiti artists (Banksy’s forefathers) that flourished amidst economic ruin are a massive part of the international skateboarding culture.
But how did it happen? “The actual sport itself got big enough to attract people to it other than punks,” says Dan White- or MC Medasin Man. “It was coming up from California, coming up from the surfing community which is where it originated, into the other inner city areas.”
Wearing baggy jeans, hoody, gold chain and oversize head phones, White, 23, is the stereotypical hip hop style skateboarder. In-between skating each day he records
tracks and performs at open mic nights.
“New York was where skateboarding and Hip Hop came together for the first time. It started with DJ’s doing open air shows in parks with skaters rolling by on their plastic banana boards.
“If you watch skateboarding videos like ZooYork Mixtape, in the 90s the skaters were skating during the day then hanging out in recording studios and radio stations at night with people like Busta Rhymes,” he says.
Zoo York: The mix tape was one of the first skateboarding videos that used Hip Hop as a soundtrack throughout the whole video. Made in 90s New York, it demonstrated the ever growing culture ties between skateboarding and hip hop.
“I think hip hop doesn’t necessarily go well with all skaters but it goes well with that particular skater.
“If you put hip hop songs with a skater who is really a hard and aggressive like Tony Trujillo it doesn’t look right, but if you look at someone who is hip hop orientated, the ways that they skate and the way they behave that’s what goes together.
“Hip hop skaters are never really ramp skaters. There not chucking themselves way up in the air doing massive tricks. Most are street skaters doing technical tricks on ledges.”
White’s observations on the links between Hip Hop and skateboarding are impressive - and accurate. Take a visit to your local skateboard shop and the chances are they are playing Hip Hop in the background. It is a relationship that looks set to continue into the coming years.
*Image from BBC documentary Once Upon A Time in New York