poser need time skating
skater mtrue
who think is you criticise talk talk down
on beginna
if you were not naive at some point
koreantown oddity playlist into love
who on this earths green land was not
born an infant
gatekeep
keep away
all -ism block people from kujitambua.
wase wajibambe venye wanadai na body
yao.
Life fupi.
The curiosity around a skater mtrue arised from a conversation over the representation of 'good' skateboarding in skate videos.
Skater mtrue's practice is dedicated to this dissection of goodness and its intersection with authenticity. In this zine, we examine one of the values we found within this intersection; vulnerability.
Skateboarding is like jazz. Therefore, inherently, skateboarding is like hip-hop.
In this zine, Tonyi lets us know what it was like to land a kickflip, and to have Tony Hawk repost her clip. Through the lens of vulnerability Skater Mtrue converses about skateboarding and hip-hop with alternative rapper mau from nowhere and DJ nowisgood. Gose from the Uganda Skateboard Society shares about the terrior of Ugandan skaters. The greater theme of vulnerability is discussed by Anto and
V as they locate the moments of vulnerability in sesh, the scene and society.
-skater mtrue
TONYII: I am grateful for this new year, because the skateboarding scene is growing, not only girls are showing up more but also some boys are turning up and showing interest too...so I'm so grateful that it's growing
There was just that need for a Girls' Community in the skate scene and it was time. In GirlSkateNairobi we plan to Connect, Represent and Empower women through skateboarding.
Thank you! It felt so good landing that trick and to even land it in front of a mass of witnesses, that's fire! A Kickflip, I feel is an intro trick to the next level of skateboarding where you get to 4 understand how the board behaves when you flip. Tony Hawk sasa reposting and commenting on that clip was the tip of the icing, like he's the legendary Tony Hawk!
Imekua normal I'd say cause I have had the grace of blending in and in turn that has allowed me to learn easily. I enjoy the Ubuntu that skateboarders possess and it just comes naturally too. Vitu ziuniboo is that there's not enough sponsors coming in to support our Kenyan Scene yet there's a lot of talent, so skateboarders here are a bit low on cash.
Last year 2023 ndo ilikua year nilianza kuskate seriously but on and off like 3 years total...
Favorite skater is Beatrice Domond...Kuna this video ya DGK or Thrasher if I am not wrong, inaitwa AMEN. Inspo kwangu hutokea from watching others and also from my art.
Yeah, I'm a fine artist as well as a graffiti artist and graffiti and skateboarding are historically siblings so they merge so well. I started and have been developing my love of art since I was a kid, I knew I was an artist by then.
Skater mtrue...uhm, sita name names but nita seti profile...Skater mtrue kwangu ni yule msee atakeep on trying that trick in that particular moment until they make progress in it, even though they don't land it hio time ju maybe ameget weary...but they don't quit... so next time akituckle hio trick ana understand what they now need to do correctly, then they land the trick!
hip-hop and skateboarding
Skater mtrue had a conversation with mau from nowhere and nowisgood to discover the similarities between natural wines, hip-hop na skateboarding. Chukua kalamu tuingie daro.
bios
MAU FROM NOWHERE: I feel that this is the first time in my life I’ve engaged with a skateboarding scene. My skateboarding history was very isolated. A lot of skaters have started that way and found their community through that. I never really got to that stage but I think skateboarding is one of those things, similar to hip-hop, that has a culture that's universal. It’s a culture that has found its way to so many different pockets of the world. I got introduced to skateboarding through the pop culture around it, in cartoons and stuff which was very centered around this image of punkish white kids. I also met a lot of kids in college who skate and came across it online. I was low-key (high-key) into Odd Future . I remember watching this video of them at the berrics over and over again just because I thought it was so cool and funny. I thought it was so dope, all these niggas skating. I’d kind of follow everyone, like Sage and Nakel Smith, people who were skating as their main thing.
NOWISGOOD: I don’t know what the history of skateboarding is but I do think that the kinds of people who have taken up skateboarding in one form or the other for recreational or professional purposes have a kind of anti-establishmentism in them because it's quite a bold thing to do. Because of the people who are drawn to it, there is a form of anti- establishment or something very individualistic that can’t be copied or put in a box. I think that's very similar to hip-hop or any subculture that became a culture. When I was doing my research for my thesis (Two Grapes in a Pod: The Cultural Similarities Between the Natural Wine and Hip-Hop Movements) a lot of the books were speaking about the subculture of hip-hop and how it was anti-establishment, and how it would bring people to be very individualistic and express themselves, and to kind of defy rules for whatever set boxes they were in.
In my thesis I do compare hip-hop to skateboarding. Hip-hop in its prime as a subculture was MCing, DJing, graffiti, and breakdancing. These were the four elements of hip-hop. The fifth element was the community and the pro blackness that came out of hip-hop. If you think about skateboarding, it's not just about skating. You have this instrument, this deck that is yours. On this deck, at the bottom, people do art, sometimes there's graffiti on it. Sometimes when I’m sited up at The Mall, all the boards on the ground sound a little different. Each skateboard sounds different. Which I think is cool. The elements of skateboarding would then be the deck, how you designed the deck, how you dress. People dress functionally, but in that functionality there's style. That's the same way people dressed when they needed to breakdance. Like there was functionality but there was also style. At some point graffiti was so illegal. New York spent so much money chasing kids who were doing graffiti. The government would paint over the art and pay The New York Times to write about how evil graffiti was. They spent so much energy trying to erase this thing. They had to give up. It was quite anti-black and graffiti was a form of rebellion. The graffiti artists also had to dress in a functional way, like with their hoodies and shoes, so that they could run away from the police. There's different variables, and also things going on in the environment that influence how people dress. They all culminate together to form this street style of hip-hop that's also been translated into skateboarding.
SKATER MTRUE: Halifu Osumare from her book The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop claims that hip-hop originated from Africa. Hip-hop was here through chants, songs, prayers which is the proclamation, energy and intent of the spoken word. Rappers really manifest the life that they want by speaking about it and that's a practice which originated from here. Like rapping about a rich life when you’re not living it is a way of manifesting it. These bars also serve as affirmations to ourselves.
MAU FROM NOWHERE It's self actualising. Rappers use this tool to create a reality and a way of being in the world. The defiance of people who have been marginalised and don’t have a space designated for them in society creates this avenue where they use whatever avenue they can to do their thing. That’s why skaters are so creative using whatever architecture they can find to take up space. Similar to hip-hop, rappers put words where they’re not meant to be and change how words sound. If rappers were too fixated on speaking English in the proper colonial way, they wouldn’t be able to make hip-hop. When you try to write in a way that uses no contractions or no slurring, you create limitations in your flow. It’s gonna sound forced.
NOWISGOOD: One of the foundations of wine is the environment, they call it terroir in France. It's how the land and winemaker speak to each other. If the winemaker is not speaking to the land, treating it well, then the land is not talking back to the winemaker. The expression of the terroir is not going to be shown in the wine. Like the bananas of Uganda and Kenya are not the same. Whatever is in that Ugandan banana is Uganda's Terroir, whatever is in Kenya’s bananas is Kenya's terroir.
SKATER MTRUE: Ugandan skaters have their own terroir. Their environment makes them skate differently. They have super steep ramps and thats what they adapted to. That could look different for another African country. Kenyan’s skate more street because that’s how the culture was formed especially during Uhuru Park days. The environment enables street skating to thrive. Street skating definitely depends on the development of a country’s infrastructure. Environment also includes the people and how they view skateboarding. People are more chill to skateboarders now than before.
MAU FROM NOWHERE: The culture you are from and the musical landscape influences style. In the U.S, East Coast and West Coast rap had very different styles. The West Coast was more gangster rap whereas East Coast didn’t have the same landscape. And in New York rap, the main thing was style. Like Jay-Z was rapping about style and how fresh he was. West Coast stuff like Snoop Dog is bouncy and cruisey, you’re in a city where you’re driving everywhere and your rap style ends up flowing like that. I’ve noticed this for Ghanaian rappers. Ghana is a hectic country and I think it's also Twi, the language, its speed and syllable structure that influence the flow of Ghanaian rappers. I feel like Kiswahili speaking countries are predisposed to music making because of the language. Swahili is poetic, melodic, phonetic. Majority of the words end with a vowel. It’s so much better for rhyming. It's so much more flexible and creative. You can have fun with it.
NOWISGOOD: Since independence we’ve been a very pro free market, pro capitalist, pro driving the economy forward through work and education. As a result we’ve been able to grow fast as a country and have access to a lot of influences and information from outside through accessibility. We got access to the Internet quite fast and quite easily. We are also super entrepreneurial through things like mpesa and people setting up small businesses. Also due to the failure of government and the lack of money and lack of ways to support yourself, people need some extra hustle money to keep afloat. We’ve been a very entrepreneurial country and I think that also manifests in how creatively things have panned out because there haven’t been many opportunities to do work creatively at a professional level. Maybe with skateboarding for example, the way Zamani that was able to create an agreement to have space to skate at The Mall rooftop is part of the entrepreneurial nature of Kenya. You kind of have to find other creative avenues to do your work. That wouldn’t have happened if skateboarding was considered in the urban infrastructure of town. I think Kenyans are quite smart. Sometimes it's also like, we shouldn’t have to be busting our asses but the way that spaces and communities have been created and art has been made has been born out of lack of a lack of infrastructure and a lack of government support. The more that we’re growing as a country and growing at the same pace as the whole world is growing, it's interesting to see how things have manifested.
MAU FROM NOWHERE: Skateboarding is one of the ways to just be without it costing you. The Mall has quite a bit of idle space and individuals are often there seeking community and a way to express themselves in a very organic way. When I was in uni, I knew there were certain parks that were less popular and that's where you’d find the skaters, or people chilling or rapping, it was a space for people looking to find themselves. In Nairobi there's a pressure cooker of thoughts and talent and expression in young people that is now finding its own outlets because there’s been little paths set in place on where to go forward if you have an interest in skateboarding or in music. These scenes have had to manifest organically because there's no other way.
SKATER MTRUE: Skateboarding is young. The innovators are still alive and that's the same with hip-hop. Its influence is felt in such a wide way despite them being young. The future of these things is somehow unimaginable. In the next 500 years it could change radically. The skate industry is still very male and white dominated, which is an unfortunate symptom of its youth, but it’s starting to give more space to people of colour and women. The skate scenes in Africa are really young and there are not so many avenues and industries that exist to support the people who want to do these things and we may be among the first generation to maybe try to figure that out.
NOWISGOOD: Hip-hop is so mainstream right now it’s not even funny. It’s the most listened to genre in the world. There's so much money in hip-hop. This culture that was once a voice and source of community for black people and marginalised people of the world is run by white people in boardrooms. Even in fashion, like supreme taking street fashion and making it expensive and inaccessible, are they skater mtrue? I remember speaking to Marcus J. Moore who wrote the autobiography of Kendrick, The Butterfly Effect. We discussed the commercialisation of hip-hop and he said how he knows a lot of rappers, not necessarily big stage rappers, but rappers who are on the precipice of growing up. They used to do small shows and as they'd keep growing, they'd reach a point where they'd go to a venue or an event, look up and see mainly white people in the crowd. There's something quite counter cultural about skateboarding. We’re living in a capitalist world where things are co-opted to make money and are taken to be cool and given off to the masses, and the masses take up this thing and start doing it, not for their sake but for the clout. A skater mtrue is someone who will not wait for those reasons to skate and still show that skateboarding still attracts people with some sort of defiance to the system. Post thesis and being in the UK where there’s a lot of wine and a lot of natural wine bars, I have been noticing that within this subculture of natural wine that the idea and aesthetic of natural wines and minimal intervention wine has started to be co- opted for capitalist and aesthetic reasons. You’ll find natural wine bars taking on this persona of authenticity but the wines they’re serving are really expensive even if they’re promoting “accessibility”. They look trendy and cool but their spaces are not very friendly which is the opposite of my actual experience at an authentic natural wine bar. I guess its because of capitalism. There is something interesting about Jaba juice and its community. There's Kerby’s juice and Midl East's juice. Both taste very different but they do the same thing. They’re very natural tasting, packaged in glass and are quite sustainable but their aesthetics are quite different in their bottle designs and social media presence. They both do music events. Kerby has Zama sessions with nice live music, art, fashion and guys hanging out. Nod factor is a different experience and vibe but both are centered around Jaba and hip-hop.
SKATER MTRUE: It’s a bit interesting where that intersection between hip-hop and skateboarding happened. Black people started skateboarding in their own way, for their own expression. Most skaters that were pushing the boundaries of skateboarding ended up crossing paths with the evolution of music. Like some Zoo York guys were doing things with Wu Tang. That's when hip-hop and skateboarding merged. As the black skaters increased in numbers, they were able to infiltrate that white boy image of skateboarding. I think it's black people skating that introduced the elements of hip-hop to skateboarding's style. Right now in Nairobi, music and skateboarding are very intertwined. Like we’re mostly skating at The Mall and in the basement is Santuri and The Mist.
The intersection happens because of the counterculture and also because skateboarding attracts certain people who are artistic and like to express themselves. A lot of skaters in the scene are also artists. It's hard to find an artist who doesn’t enjoy different types of expression. The people who don’t resonate with skateboarding must be very conservative.
There have been so many hip-hop music videos that have included skateboarders. Some artists feel authentic with their connection and desire to feature skateboarders in their work, but some others don’t feel very authentic, mostly because we can’t find them within those cultural spots of intersection between skateboarding and the arts.
Collaborations with inauthentic artists also give skaters little to no creative space. Skater’s are often asked to do the bare minimum and the aesthetic of the skateboard and the skateboarder is valued far above what the skater is capable of doing. Even in the editing process, things like cutting the shot before the make. Someone working as a collaborator should want a skater's input and want to learn about the culture rather than assuming that they know how skaters do their things.
In the Refuse Refuge music video there was a certain understanding. Mau was standing on the mkokoteni, engaging with this skate sculpture. The editing was also good, you could see Elijah Kitaka do his trick. Even using two directors, and one of them being Adam Yawe who is a skater to direct the skate scenes must have contributed a lot.
MAU FROM NOWHERE: That’s one of the risks of doing cool shit, that people want to engage with it in some way. Wanting to engage with it isn’t a bad thing because it leads to cool collaborations. It was Marion's idea for the Refuse Refuge video and it made sense to include skateboarders in it. I had spoken to Adam and he does dope work that I wanted to learn more about. Before we made the video we spent four days talking and hanging out. Learning about his process and how he got into skating. To me that's the whole point of why these cultures get attracted to each other–so you can have an exchange.
Ultimately there's also the risk of things getting appropriated by the mainstream where people are only seeing the stylistic element and consuming it. It's a double edged sword, on one hand you want people to get their bag but you also want this culture to grow.
Adam directed the entire skate scene section. It was very much a loose idea, and I felt it would be weird to just add skaters for aesthetic value. The skate scene was a concept based on the song and it's also what the song means, and I feel like it resonates to a degree with part of the ethos of Zamani. Adam had some ideas and I gave him the space to do that. Collaboration only exists when there's mutual input and a respectful dialogue. We both learnt about each other's crafts. He was super open to that and super patient. Before we even got into the nitty gritty of what the scene is going to look like, we just wanted to understand each other and see if it could even work. Sometimes you can go into a cool scene or meet a cool artist but if it doesn’t feel genuine maybe it isn’t the right time. The video came out a year later than it was supposed to but it was much better for it.
Gose Gerald is a skateboarder and founder of Uganda Skateboard Society. We had a chat with him about his skate journey, his influences and the stylistic differences between Kenyan and Ugandan scenes.
Well, I started skateboarding way back in 2005 but it's not because I wanted to learn how to skate but it's because skateboarding was the only thing that would make me busy and keep me far away from bad influence. I was raised in one of Kampala 's dangerous ghettos full of crimes.
The love & passion I got for skateboarding keeps me going and also I got a big vision for the African skate scene.
Well, skaters from Uganda have been skating transitions for over the years and there have been less street skating. Those who really discovered themselves as street skaters used to go to Kampala city every Sunday since it's a bit far from the skateparks, but still it used to be not fun. Personally I was arrested in 2012 and taken to prison so from there I promised never to skate on our streets in Kampala again. Most of Ugandan skaters have always been inspired by the vert and mega ramp rippers like Danny Way, Bob Burnquist, Tony Hawk etc.
To me a true skater is this kind of person who keeps going no matter the level of skating he or she is but just skates and has fun with the hommies with less expectations, true skaters support each other in any kind of way. Once opportunities come they hit you along the way. So many people begin skateboarding with lots of expectations and once they don't reach them they quit.
Skater mtrue ni mgani? Anto na V wanabonga kuhusu vulnerability kwa scene yetu.
V: We’ve been speaking every now and then about vulnerability in skateboarding, you had mentioned that skateboarding is like vulnerability and real skaters are people who have been trying to express something. Do you think that's something other skaters agree with?
A: I think everyone has different perspectives on this amazing thing that they fell in love with.
V: Where does the vulnerability lie in skateboarding, according to your perspective? Like is it in the tricks? Is it in showing up? Is it in trying consecutively?
A: The act of skating itself is a really vulnerable thing for me. In order for me to zone in and get a session going I have to let go of the thought of how people are perceiving me especially if I am skating alone in a public space.
V: Yeah, I go through vulnerability in my own way. Falling is vulnerability. Showing up with my deck and trying is also vulnerability. And it's vulnerable because I have to go beyond people's opinions of what they think I should be doing on my skateboard, especially from non-skaters. I think there's just this assumption that just because I show up with a skateboard and try, I should be nailing tricks and doing things that I am currently not capable of.
A: I think trying to achieve what people expect you to achieve is blocking yourself. It can come in the way of your sesh.
V: Vulnerability can also be caused by lack. Are there things our scene is lacking which makes us vulnerable?
A: There's a lot that's lacking in our scene but for some reason we've always found a way to keep skating. Most of us either use second hand boards or get products from friends traveling from abroad, which we are grateful for. This definitely puts us in a vulnerable position and some people have exploited this vulnerability.
V: Isn't this the type of vulnerability that brings in NGOs?
A: Yeah man, there's this time a non-skate NGO approached me cos they wanted to introduce skateboarding to kids. For me it felt like they were using kids and skateboarding to get funding. It seems like they care for themselves more than they care about skateboarding. But at the same time, the kids want to skate and if this is the only means by which they can access skateboarding then there's something wrong.
V: That's true. Have there been times where our scene has created spaces for themselves without the need of foreign aid?
A: Good question, we haven't acquired a space of our own but we've found spaces to skate through agreements with owners. I personally have progressed my skateboarding by taking over public spaces. One of the best spots we've ever had, uhuru park, was spotted by some OG skaters who started going there regularly. Leo and DC have mentioned how hard it was to skate there cos the city council people kept chasing them and sometimes they would get fined.
V: Woah! They're the ones who endured that so no other skater would.
A: Yes they did and they made the spot our home for quite a while. Until it was recently gentrified. It was such a good plaza that even pro's and big brands documented it.
V: Do you feel like there is care when pros and brands join the scene?
A: I feel like there's been a lot of exploitation of the vulnerability of the scene.
V: Yeah, I've heard the stories of what went down when Vans and Redbull Kenya joined the scene.
A: Yeah, there's a way that these guys come and "collaborate" with us that leaves us empty while they are gaining. We did a whole film with Vans that was uploaded privately on a subscription based streaming service and no impact was felt on scene.
V: So the film was not made accessible to the Kenyan skaters?
A: Yeah. I think there's a way that these brands can show care to an African scene that they so badly want to represent but also they don't take us and our needs seriously. Even Redbull Kenya did a contest at our spot and ended up giving us fake boards and some hype.
V: What would the scene want from such collaborations?
A: There's many ways to improve a scene whether it's through products, sponsoring/paying the skaters involved in these collaborations and most importantly creating spaces to make skateboarding more accessible.
A: I'm curious about your experience of vulnerability as a beginner female skateboarder. How do you think gender and identity influences one's experience in skateboarding especially in our scene?
V: I think I face vulnerability the most through comparison. I don't know if all girls feel that they have to overcome certain gender stereotypes to keep being consistent. But I also feel that using your gender or the lack of other female skaters in the scene is a lame excuse for not show up. I think people skate for different reasons but what makes us one is that we all show up and try no matter how vulnerable the experience is.
A: That sounds very empowering! You're talking about being a Skater Mtrue. Showing up regardless of the limitations and creating the architecture that we want from within.
V: Yeah like not waiting for things to be spectacular and easy for us to begin and progress.
A: I support, why do you think people find it hard to stay true?
V: Skateboarding is really hard cos of how not good you are when you start out. Maybe there's a similar vulnerability when you're first trying out a new trick. You have to face how much you suck at it.
A: Yeah, and because skateboarding is something practiced so publicly you have to make peace with all the eyes that see you suck at it and fall.
V: Do you think that we live in a society that understands public failure?
A: (thinks) I don't think so, people enjoy trash talking.
V: I sometimes wonder what the colonised mind thinks about rebellious acts. I think skaters are non conforming and sometimes it can be seen as offensive to approach public spaces differently.
A: Yeah and that generally shows how people in the country respond to the unfamiliar act of skateboarding. I have been filming in the streets of Nairobi with Skitty. We noticed that there seems to be an improved collective awareness of skateboarding by the public but that's not always the case. Skating in the streets puts you in a really vulnerable position and you have to know how to maneuver your way to getting a trick. Sometimes we get kicked out violently or give bribes to get our tricks, I know this also happens in other parts of the world.
V: I suppose the city is designed to ensure that people's movements are controlled to create order.
A: Then it makes sense why people's initial response is to question why someone would be using a space differently.
V: Skateboarding definitely challenges that. In the theme of vulnerability, we made a playlist that invites the scene to deeply listen and feel understood within their vulnerability. It's also a sesh playlist.
A: Sic, lets get into it.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/33uz0iAkInH89oKhQualpy?si=711fada5eb684abf
Everybody got an opinion as to what a 'True' skater is... But this is what I believe; skateboarding is FREEDOM! That kind of freedom that makes you forget all that's going on around you and focus on yourself, be yourself! That one place you fully let your guard down! If that's how skateboarding makes you feel, YOU ARE A TRUE SKATER!
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