Aside from the mid 90s thirst traps… It made me realise that I’ve never understood where/when/what/how there was a Wu Tang skate company. Have vague memories of riding some of their wheels, but being relatively young and disinterested, I never paid too much attention.
Anyone got any back story on it?
Maybe my second favourite set of random company wheels, aside from Ghetto Child wheels (one set of which was sold to me for a tenner by a lovely just returned forumer at meanwhile)
I remember someone explaining it in an interview like bobshirt or that lee smith thing..? Wasn’t it American Dream Unit not Wu Tang the actual brand?
I think I had one when they came out.
Edit: Quick google search “Chromeball incident Wu Tang Skateboards” …
Wu Tang Hard Goods Race Car (1998)
Art by Jahmal Williams & Aaron Hoover
That one was unique because that was the second board that came out on Wu Tang Hard Goods Company. This was one that I collaborated with Aaron Hoover on. At the time I didn’t know anything about Photoshop or Illustrator, so I did the art direction for the whole series for Kevin Taylor, Maurice Key and myself.
Wu Tang Hard Goods came about when Christian Strike gave me a call. I had just finished an interview for Strength magazine when he said that Wu Tang was in touch with him and they wanted to do a skateboard company, and he was in charge of the company. He asked me some of my ideas about it and we put a team together. We wanted to make it the first all-black skate team.
The team consisted of Maurice Key and myself, then Kevin Taylor came on board. The next individuals in line were gonna be Mike Hernadez and Stevie Williams. The company lasted close to a year or more and then it was stopped. At the time we weren’t making very much money at all from our regular board sponsors. But we made good royalties from the Wu-Tang Hard Goods sales. There were talks about us meeting the Wu Tang members and possibly going on tour with them, doing skate demos. But it got shut down before it got to that level, someone else bought the licensing agreement. And that was that.
I’ve gone on about it a bit I think. All I’ll say is matey’s story gets WAY better every time he tells it. From the initial ‘saw some lights’ to ‘aliens mind melded with me, took me to their home world, telepathically’ etc. Makes a good living doing UFO cons etc. Con being the word
The idea aliens are visiting earth is nice but cannot feasibly be true, especially in the equivalent of a nissan micra
Quite like the idea of Trump not being the apex power and there being an alien race of benign liberals, like a benevolent Homelander, that comes to earth and puts him into space prison and then sets about making millions of wind farms or whatever.
Boring Friday night deck identification question for the board nerds.
T’was 1992/93, right bang in the slim football board tiny wheel times, I’m not sure if the brand or model but I remember the graphics were grey and orange, I seem to think it was reminiscent of this abstract Piet Mondrian paintings, but grey and orange
Holy crap that might be it, amazing work. I was a little off with my description but there it is
Had it very briefly, a mate wanted a jacket I had, he gave me this in trade, came back a few weeks later begging for it back, I didn’t get the jacket back but no biggy
Has anyone else been getting really bland soulless ads on youtube from route one and rollersnakes? Are these made with ai? I’m struggling to see how anyone could create anything so vanillia.
Do you guys know about any UK or Europe based online retailer that would sell Otto 39-165 hats and ship them to Switzerland? I need about 4, not ordering in bulk or anything. Thanks!
Found a copy of that “this is a journey into sound” stereo lp that coldcut sampled in a junk shop. £9. Didn’t buy. Bloody discogs ruined the digging game
I mean, if Discogs existed in the 80’s and 90’s I would have used it then. Digging is a bit of a myth when it comes to harder to find stuff, with reggae at least. Much more access to things now, even though it’s annoying when it’s all dictated by price, but that creates a much needed market too. Especially after the death of vinyl as the main format at the start of the century
I just miss popping into charity shops and getting all the classics, yer blondies, bowies, Iggys, jam, Barry white etc, not real rarities just solid stuff for a quid. And occasional dance / hip hop stashes. But that was a long time ago
