In July of this year, I wrote about a forgotten sense of community and the prevailing loss of culture we experience when we succumb to loneliness and individualism. One of the references I used for the piece and what it means to cultivate a community was the American female skater-led drama, Betty. More and more women…
Friday, 19 August 2022, saw the launch of a soft collaboration between S.W.A.N.K Jozi and WAFFLESNCREAM Nigeria. This was easily the kind of organic street culture connection that all of us will be excited about for a while. Hosted at the S.W.A.N.K store in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, the two brands drew a consistent crowd of patriot…
The existential dilemma of whether my career is my life or my life is my career in Johannesburg came up for me one week ago. To ensure that I was “living” my life outside of work constraints, I naturally scheduled a full week’s worth of activities to do throughout the workweek. Although I do not…
Sole, in collaboration with Power Horse, is fuelling creative expression and empowering a new era that showcases the beauty of South African skate. Titled ‘GREEN SHOOTS’, one of the features — that comes in the form of a short video — takes an organic look at the scene of South African skate, particularly in Cape…
The time is 13h15, South African Standard Time (SAST) and I am 15 minutes deep into an interesting Zoom conversation with Jomi all the way from Lagos, Nigeria. The conversation scales and we get into a lot, which makes total sense as after all, I am in discussion with the founder of WAFFLESNCREAM – Nigeria’s…
As a gift from the Surf Ghana Collective and Wonders Around the World to Ghana’s booming skate scene, the Freedom Skatepark Ghana opened its doors to the public as Ghana’s first skatepark in December 2021. Nestled within lush bushes in Shiashie, under the shade of tall palm trees just off the side of one of…
The story and history of skateboarding, its boldly creative subculture and its community of shredding misfit toys; is often told through an incredibly patriarchal lens. A lens usually centralising a blue-eyed, shaggy blonde-haired and tatted up bro. From the movie “Lord’s of Dogtown”, written by Stacy Peralta—surfer turned skateboarding legend and member of the iconic…
‘Skate Value’ is a documentary series by Bushkoppies which looks into the people behind skate. I had a chat with Kopano Lichaba about the project: Where did the idea come from to make this series? How long have you been doing this and how many episodes are there at this point? The idea came…
San Francisco Bay artist, Jeffrey Cheung who is also known as a master of zines, established Unity Skateboarding in February 2017. Southern California surfers changed the rules of skateboarding ultimately in the 1970s by moving the sport’s focus from its more technical competition routine components, to skating in empty pools. This move made by what is…
The Skateroom teamed up with South African artist Robin Rhode to create a limited edition range of skateboards adorned with five of his iconic artworks. The premise behind the work at The Skateroom is to make art accessible. This is based on a social consciousness which is the heartbeat of what they do. The Skateroom…
The short film Jas Boude (2014) has recently been blowing up online. Directed by Georgina Warner & Imraan Christian, the documentary details a day in the life of a group of young skaters from Valhalla Park on the Cape Flats. In just 13 minutes the film weaves slick skating footage of the 20SK8 collective…
