respect da grind Interview Jonnine Yarbrough
From tricks to kicks, Terry Kennedy is doing it all
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n an environment where gang activity and violence are the norm, Terry Kennedy found escape in an activity that was not typical for his neighborhood – skateboarding. At the age of 23, Terry Kennedy and his crew have taken the sport by storm, reinventing the image of the skating world.
Skateboarding has gained an undeniable presence in hip-hop. How do you feel you’ve contributed to that success? I think by just staying true to who I was. I’m a big music fan. I grew up in a household that was big on hip-hop. So I just kept my same attitude, my same upbringing. So I think it just went hand-in-hand, because I still looked like the normal, typical kid out the neighborhood, but I just skateboard, you know? How does it feel to participate in a sport that is dominated by white skaters (in a commercial sense)? What’s so crazy about that, dude, is like, that’s the first thing I ever did. I always tell people when I interview like, that was the first community I ever went around and was actually accepted. I played football and basketball and all that stuff in high school, but I was smaller then, so I wasn’t accepted. It was like “Oh you ain’t fast enough” or “Oh you ain’t got enough weight.” I came into the situation with dirty shoes on, dirty threads and everybody was just like “Hey, let’s skate.” It wasn’t nothin’ like, “Oh, this dude look outta the ordinary.” It was real cool. How do you view African-Americans in skating? Dude, they’re talented man. It’s a lot of young dudes that’s under me that are African-American that are sponsored by a couple of companies that I’m on, and those dudes, the way they progressed, man, it’s amazing. Like when I go back to my neighborhood in Long Beach, I see the kids in the neighborhood skating, and … it’s crazy. Because, like, I’ll say, “Yo, let me see a kickflip,” and they kickflip and I’m like “Damn!” It’s
definitely growing at a rapid speed. It’s amazing to go back and see stuff like that – kids going in the right direction and at the same time its cool. So many girls call me sexy now just off the simple fact that I skate, you know? [laughs] It’s crazy … kids love it because it makes you feel good about yourself. You’re not, like, abandoned with the situation, like when I came through. Now you can wear it like a badge of honor. You got your little board, and you do what you do and people accept it. That’s an overall blessing. Do you think that Team Ice Cream had a major role in commercial skating? Oh, heck yeah man, hands down. To this day, I always thank Pharrell. I just saw him just a few days ago, actually. And I appreciate that dude, because he was the one that helped us bring the situation we had to a bigger and better plateau. It was only like respected in the white communities, like the commercial side of things – not the inner cities and the kids that really do it. So he helped broadcast our talents in a way that would have our community accept it and be down for it. Like, “Damn! They travel, and they got chains and this and that.” It’s crazy because it appeals to our people and paints that picture. That’s why, to this day, I always say I love that dude to death. He’s like my big brother and I respect everything he’s done for us. And he caught a lot of bullshit behind it and he kept with it. And that shows his dedication to it. A lot of people in the skate community were hating on him and hating on me throughout the situation because it was like “What’s going on?” We caught a lot of wrap behind it. Like, when the video came out and people saw it, the press stuff and everything, and they accepted it, [I was] like “Whoa, I didn’t know it was that real.” It was monumental. It was fun … it was really fun.
SPORTS & HIP-HOP
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