The Red Bulletin US Quarterly 2/24

U.S. EDITION | ISSUE 3 | 2024 | $12.99

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EDITOR’S NOTE

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Performing a blend of genres he calls “cross country,” Breland has woven together a variety of his musical influences into a sound that is at once unique and undeniably country.

A VITAL TUNE-UP There is a time-honored metaphor that compares the pursuit of success to the process of climbing a ladder.

This suggests that the pathway to greatness may be as straightforward as working hard to ascend toward a goal in a well-defined and linear manner. Sometimes success can be achieved in this fashion, but more often than not achieving your life goals is considerably more complicated and unpredictable than that. Frequently, people realize the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall and that they need to create an entirely new plan to strive toward a different goal.

Several people featured in the issue you are holding have life stories that demonstrate this kind of purposeful adaption. Consider, for instance, our cover story—on Breland, a fast-rising country singer-songwriter. He was raised on gospel, then developed a fierce interest in soul and hip-hop, all before melding these influences with his growing passion for storytelling and country. He calls his genre “cross country,” and his success is part of a broader movement in which the country scene is getting more diverse and richer in texture.

In the same vein, the incredible life story of Parks Bonifay, a champion wakeboarder turned creator and ambassador of fun, illustrates how we’re all capable of evolving and finding new successes in a nonlinear path.

For 15 years Bonifay was a dominant athlete in his sport, arguably the GOAT of wakeboarding, but he has smoothly transitioned—to be a wildly creative performer, a mentor to the next generation of pros and a versatile waterman— to remain relevant into his 40s.

And then there’s the inspiring story of dancer SonLam Nguyen, a popper who recently won the Red Bull Dance

Your Style National Final in Atlanta. Born and raised in Vietnam—he moved to the U.S. in 2017—he had to face all sorts of adaptations and challenges to find his way. If you read his story, you’ll learn more about the hardships he faced and the ways he sought tranquility to center himself and find success. Nguyen’s journey was hardly as simple as climbing a ladder to success—it was far more difficult, and far more rewarding, than that.

We hope you enjoy these and all the other stories in this issue—and, of course, that they help inspire you to place a ladder against a different wall and continue your ascent.

So m e ti m e s p e o p l e re a l i z e th a t th ey n ee d to c re a te a n e n tirel y n e w p l a n to strive to w a rd a d i f f e re n t g oa l .

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GL Askew II (Cover), Getty Images

PETER FLAX

CONTRIBUTORS

@GLASKEWII

PHOTOGRAPHER

G L ASKEW II “Being from the South, I grew up really appreciating and loving country music,” says the photographer, who grew up in Atlanta but now resides in L.A. and shot our cover story on country sensation Breland. “I remember a lot of people back then thought it was weird that this Black kid from the city had Garth Brooks and OutKast on the same CD mix.” Askew’s clients include Hypebeast, Adidas, HBO, GQ and The New York Times. Page 10

@MAURICEGARLAND

WRITER

MAURICE GARLAND The Atlanta-based writer and event host—who authored our cover profile of Breland—has been covering music, sports and other cool shit since 2003. He is the co-author of The Art Behind the Tape, a coffee-table book documenting hip-hop mixtape history. He’s also hosted concerts for Big Boi, Kendrick Lamar and Travis Scott. Garland’s work has been published by Spin, Billboard, Complex and XXL. Page 10

@THESUPERMANIAK

PHOTOGRAPHER

MARÍA JOSÉ GOVEA “My shoot with the incredible SonLam was truly a dream because of all the freedom I was given,” says the L.A.-based photographer, who shot the dancer in a botanical garden. “I was able to roam around the location with the athlete at our own pace and try many different things. The whole process felt organic and I couldn’t be happier with the results.” Govea’s clients include Apple, Nike, Spotify and LiveNation. Page 38

@JMULKA

PHOTOGRAPHER

JAKE MULKA Mulka, a self-taught photographer based in Detroit, found a passion for livemusic photography early in his career and quickly fell in love with the captivating atmosphere of Stagecoach in the Coachella Valley. “I like to think my joyful personality matches the joy of that festival,” he says. His clients include AEG Presents, Goldenvoice and Paxahau. Page 22

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CONTENTS COUNTRY

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Breland The singersongwriter charts a unique path to country stardom

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Portfolio: Jake Mulka The photographer captures the warmth of Stagecoach

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Whiskey Jam The Nashville music series champions fresh country

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Playlist Priscilla Block shares four tracks that empower her

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BATTLE CULTURE

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SonLam The champion popper is powered by an unshakable calm

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Red Bull Batalla Spanish freestyle rap takes off in the U.S.

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Red Bull Culture Clash NYC’s vibrant parade scene comes to life in an epic battle

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WATERSPORTS

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Parks Bonifay The legendary wakeboarder is in it for life

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Red Bull Foam Wreckers A surf contest that’s all about serious fun

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Kai Lenny The surfer gives back to Maui

88 BIKE

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Hannah Bergemann The freerider is ready to reach new heights

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Postcard from a Pro Bike racer Justin Williams has an Austrian adventure

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Fabio Wibmer The trials icon nails a cool trick for LeBron in a new film

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SPORTS + FITNESS

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MiLaysia Fulwiley The flashy college hoops star is no flash in the pan

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In the Moment Breaking records like an All-Star

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Train Like a Pro Surfer Ian Walsh shares how he trains with intention

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Gear Powerful devices to get you in top shape

126 Cocktail Spicy Apricot Smash 128 Masthead The Red Bulletin Worldwide 130 Final Take Comical flights of fancy at Red Bull Flugtag 06

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Jake Mulka, Bryan Soderlind, Maria Jose Govea

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68 Parks Bonifay

38 SonLam

22 Portfolio: Jake Mulka

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

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Breland

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Jacob Mulka

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WHisky Jam

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Playlist

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country country cou

country country co

country country cou

country country co

country country cou 10

Breland

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Jake Mulka

Portfolio: Jake Mulka

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Whiskey Jam

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Playlist: Priscilla Block

Singer-songwriter Breland is charting a unique path to becoming a country star by honoring all the genres that have shaped his distinctive sound.

WORDS BY MAURICE GARLAND PHOTOS BY G L ASKEW II

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Breland, 29, was photographed for The Red Bulletin at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on June 26.

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Down the street from the Ryman, Breland takes in the views at 505 Nashville, one of the tallest buildings in the city.

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alking down Fifth Avenue on a Wednesday afternoon in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, feels about as busy as you would suspect in any capital city. Vacationers wearing cowboy hats and Crocs in “sport mode” are moving slowly as they visit local tourist spots, while working people in attire ranging from business to construction are rushing back to their jobs after eating lunch. Moving at his own pace, country artist Breland is living both of those paths as he wraps up the last leg of a playful, hours-long photo shoot on a balmy day in late June.

The day began at contemporary residential skyscraper 505 Nashville. Throughout the shoot, Breland is open to the photographer’s spontaneity, despite it requiring multiple elevator trips and calls to the building staff for key-card access.

One minute he’s shooting pool at the game room on the seventh floor of the apartment renters’ wing; the next he’s playing John Legend’s “Ordinary People” on the Yamaha grand piano inside the luxe eighth-floor lounge for the building’s condo owners. As the day goes on, residents’ facial expressions range between an inquisitive “who?” when they see him with a camera crew and an annoyed “why?” when they can’t fit on the elevator with them.

Breland responds to both with the same pleasantries.

505 Nashville has a commanding presence in the city, standing 45 stories tall, with a glass facade that reflects every color in the sky. But the photo shoot’s next location, the historic Ryman Auditorium, with its arched stained-glass windows, still manages to tower over it with 132 years of music history.

Formerly home to the legendary Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman is flanked by statues honoring some of its past performers, all of whom left their marks on country music. Among them are pioneering female singer and guitarist Loretta Lynn, bluegrass music creator Bill Monroe, and its latest addition, Charlie Pride, who is known as the first Black superstar in country music.

While Breland is a long way from getting bronzed, the goldand platinum-selling 29-year-old singer-songwriter already has a mainstay presence at the venue and is becoming hard to ignore. Ever since crashing onto the music scene with his 2019 viral hit “My Truck,” Breland has been on a mission to change the way people view country music and Black people’s position in it. The song emerged on the heels of Lil Nas X’s crossover smash “Old Town Road” and Blanco Brown’s dance anthem “The Git Up” and a year before Nelly’s collaboration with country duo Florida Georgia Line, “Lil Bit.” All of which feature Black men as the lead vocalist on a country song, foreshadowing the current larger wave of Black artists swerving over into the country lane.

Going on to plant his flag with 2020’s Breland EP and his 2022 debut album Cross Country, Breland quickly became one of country music’s most sought-after collaborators due to his exceptional songwriting and penchant for melody. Just four years into his solo career he’s already been on tour with country queen Shania Twain, co-written two songs with Grammy-winning star Keith Urban and won an Academy of Country Music Award (in 2023). This June he was named a Global Music Ambassador for the U.S. State Department alongside artists like Chuck D of Public Enemy and Herbie Hancock, who will all be tasked with “elevating music as a diplomatic platform to expand access to education, economic opportunity and equity, and inclusion.”

It has to be mentioned that he was already doing that before the government gave him a job title. Since 2022, he’s hosted his

annual “Breland & Friends” benefit concert at the Ryman, where a long list of music superstars, including Josh Groban and Nelly, have joined him on stage to perform duets and create a slew of one-night-only memories for sold-out crowds. Last year’s show produced a live album, and to date, the event series has raised more than $300,000 for the Oasis Center, an organization dedicated to helping youth in Middle Tennessee, with services ranging from crisis intervention to college prep.

With so much on his plate—including opening for fellow genremashing artist Teddy Swims’s tour starting in September and performing at a new event called Red Bull Jukebox in October— no one would blame Breland for catching a breath on this walk he’s taking. But with the path that he’s helped to clear getting more occupied by the day, he doesn’t feel like he can slow down right now.

“When I came onto the scene, it was me, Kane Brown, Mickey Guyton, Darius Rucker, Jimmie Allen, Blanco Brown as far as Black artists in country music that had [record] deals,” says Breland, literally counting the names on one hand as he recites them. “Now there’s probably 15 to 20 Black artists that have deals and are putting music out. Beyoncé coming into this space changes the landscape, and now there’s more diverse crowds that are tapped into country music and country music is having this really unique cultural moment that I definitely feel like I contributed to in a meaningful way.”

He pauses. “But it’s also something that I feel like I need to turn the gas up a little bit more, because there’s always more work to be done.”

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The story of Breland and his breakthrough song “My Truck” has been well documented. The track, produced by Kal V and veteran songwriter Troy Taylor, features Breland harmonizing about Air Jordans, blunts, V8 engines and plenty of other things Americans of all races enjoy, over trap drums met with guitar picking.

Originally released independently, the song picked up major momentum online, leading to Breland signing a record deal with Atlantic Records in 2020. The natural order of things was supposed to go: Take the song to radio, get it played, put out an EP and go on tour. But just as that plan was coming to fruition, the world stopped due to the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent quarantine restrictions that came with it.

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“We took ‘My Truck’ to pop radio literally a week before the pandemic hit,” remembers Breland, whose self-titled EP still dropped in May 2020 in hopes of salvaging some of the lost momentum. “They didn’t do anything, because people aren’t commuting to and from work anymore, so nobody’s listening to the radio.”

While radio and touring were no longer options, streaming still helped the project move along, with “My Truck” earning a gold plaque that August and then a platinum one the following January. (In June 2024, the single eclipsed the double-platinum mark for selling 2 million copies.) So the Breland EP served to introduce the singer-songwriter to audiences in the country

Getty Images

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BRELAND

In March, Breland hosted his third annual “Breland & Friends” benefit at the Ryman Auditorium.

The event raised more than $140,000 to help youth in Tennessee.

and hip-hop/R&B worlds who may have been curious about what each other were doing, but not so much that they would come over and introduce themselves.

“It was a social moment where there is now a song where you had like Black dudes in Atlanta and Houston and white people and old people and young people all vibing with this song,” says Breland. “That doesn’t really happen a whole lot in music because it tends to be segmented and the music industry has made it that way. There’s a lot of history to support that. So I knew that what I was doing was different and that it did have the chance to build a bridge between cultures that don’t always have anything at their epicenter.”

While it would be nice to think that technology has flattened the fences and made everything available to everybody all at once, that is only partially true. Because of algorithms, curated playlists and other metrics that continue to shape listeners’ tastes, it can be argued that audiences are as segregated as ever.

In theory, a hardcore hip-hop head can click on a digital service provider’s “Hot Country Music” playlist out of sheer curiosity.

Just like a lifelong country music fanatic could do the same with an R&B playlist. But if there’s nothing or no one there framing it in a way that would help them understand the music or the people behind it, it’s not likely they would take any real interest. It’s Breland’s hope that music like his can be that introduction past THE RED BULLETIN

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the marketing and closer to the idea that people can find and appreciate what they have in common.

“I think country music and hip-hop are really two sides of the same coin,” says Breland. “You’ve got people that are expressing themselves in a way that doesn’t have any rules. To me, what makes that album a country album is that in its own way it is telling stories, and I think hip-hop does the same thing. It’s just using different language, production and instrumentation, but it’s the same thing.”

At age 29, it has taken some contrasting life experiences for Breland to arrive at seeing things that way. Born and raised in Burlington, New Jersey, Daniel Gerard Breland grew up exclusively around gospel music, as both of his parents were ordained ministers who also recorded and performed music themselves, touring churches and other small venues. With the town being just 40 minutes northeast of Philadelphia, he was also raised in the religion of sports, which explains why his Instagram feed mostly features videos of him singing or giving game predictions—or, at his apex, singing the game predictions.

Brought up in a musical household, Breland says he and his siblings had to learn how to sing whether or not they planned on pursuing the craft professionally. Luckily for him, when he did decide to do music for a living, he had tons of research to pull from.

“One of the benefits of growing up in an environment like that is we had Pro Tools when I was 9 years old,” says Breland of the popular audio software, adding that seeing his parents hold down day jobs while also producing music kept him inspired when he found himself in the same situation starting his own career. “So now I have 20 years of Pro Tools experience where, if I’m in a studio and the engineer is moving too slow, I’m like, ‘Get out the way, bro—I’m about to just sit down and get this done myself.’ It brings me a lot of joy to be able to record myself, because it is a very grounding and fundamental experience from my childhood.”

It wasn’t until he left home and went to boarding school at the Peddie School in nearby Hightstown, New Jersey, in his teenage years that he was exposed to other genres like R&B, rock and rap. Up to this point, the only experience he had actually doing music was singing in his school and church choirs or singing background for his older siblings in impromptu performances at home. Now that he was out on his own, he wanted to try making this new music he was hearing.

It was here that he started working with his roommate, who had the tools and instruments to help him do just that.

“The way my brain works just as a musician, when I hear two songs that are totally different, I’m immediately thinking of how they’re similar,” says Breland. “I love seeing how rock songs would play with these chord progressions and what types of production elements they would use and what really makes something a rock song, what really makes something a country song. Being able to find those similarities was just really exciting to me, just got my brain moving in a different way.”

Breland’s different way began to take shape when he declined admission into NYU’s highly coveted Clive Davis Institute for Recorded Music to instead study business at Georgetown University. He explains the decision simply, stating, “I already knew how to make music” and instead wanted to learn the business side of the industry he dreamed of entering. While at Georgetown, he joined the university’s long-running a cappella group, the Phantoms, but off-campus

Growing up in a musical household in Burlington, New Jersey, Breland and his siblings learned how to sing at an early age. His parents, both ordained ministers, recorded and performed music, touring churches and the like.

he began dabbling with rap music, linking with producers Austin Powerz and Lee on the Beats, often working out of DJ Khaled’s New York City studio. Breland is the first one to admit that, as a studious college student raised in the church, he felt like a fish out of water in that environment. But he notes that he was able to connect with everyone in the room because they all spoke the language of music.

“Regardless of what everybody else was into in their personal lives or in their social lives, I knew when we got in the studio to make music, they could respect me as their peer because I’m gonna come up with melodies and I’m gonna come up with lyrics,” he says.

Unfortunately, activities in people’s personal lives are exactly what eventually impacted his decision to move on. One of the main artists with whom he’d built a rapport—a rappper from Queens and protégé of French Montana named Chinx—was gunned down at an intersection in 2015, changing Breland’s mind about what avenue he wanted to take into the music industry.

“It really rocked me because I hadn’t really been exposed to that kind of violence,” says Breland, adding that had it not been for Chinx telling him to stay in the studio and finish the songs they were working on, he would have been in the car with him that night. “I felt like at that point, I don’t know if I wanna be in this scene. It felt like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air moment where ‘my mom got scared’ and said you can’t go to Far Rockaway, New York, anymore.”

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After finishing up at Georgetown, earning a degree in marketing and management, the next mile of Breland’s walk took him where most people in his situation go: Atlanta. While the nicknames like “the Black Mecca” and “the Motown of the South” have begun to grow gray hairs, the city still remains a hotbed for young Black musicians looking to get to the next level—the catch being that there are so many of them.

“I personally loved how many people there were in Atlanta that were trying to make music, because it felt like it gave me a bit of a community,” says Breland, responding to the notion that being yet another Black person in Atlanta making music could lead to being completely overlooked. “I was learning from a lot of these people. I also knew that my skill set was unique, because while I did understand how to speak that hip-hop and R&B language, I was also approaching music more from a Nashville perspective.”

To Breland, the “Nashville perspective” means creating melodies and writing lyrics that, as he simply puts it, “make sense,” instead of relying on a stream of consciousness, just saying things that sound cool. This linear approach to songwriting slowly started to get Breland noticed in industry circles, catching the ear of

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people like the previously mentioned Taylor, which led to getting placements with artists like Trey Songz, YK Osiris and Elhae.

While reading his name on album cover credits felt great, opportunities were still trickling instead of flooding, leading to him taking a corporate job and working a side gig as a vocal coach to make ends meet. Around this time, Breland was also starting to wonder if he was being pigeonholed. He knew he could sing but was advised to remain a writer. He listened to different musical genres but was only being approached to write in the hip-hop, R&B and occasionally gospel spaces.

Wanting to try something new, Breland got back into the experimental phase he had first explored in high school. One of the fruits of that phase, “My Truck,” wound up pushing his career into four-wheel overdrive.

Soon after signing his deal, Breland relocated to Nashville, sensing that the direction his music was going would be more welcome there. Which was probably the best thing he could’ve done at the time. Atlanta’s musical identity is a by-product of its predominantly Black population, built on a legacy of artists including Curtis Mayfield, Bobby Brown and OutKast. It’s also

BRELAND

the birthplace of trap music and home to multiple Black megachurches. In such a crowded musical landscape, there wasn’t much room for Breland to find his path to success. Years prior, popular country singer Kane Brown had a similar go at it, learning that being a Black country artist in a Black city doesn’t always work before finally moving to Nashville himself. Things were looking up for Breland until March 2020, when the music industry slowed down due to COVID. Forced into quarantine like the rest of the world, Breland figured that since everyone, including in-demand producers, songwriters and artists, were all at the house and not touring or bouncing around studios as usual, he should shoot as many shots as possible. This led to him forming online relationships with dozens of people despite being new to town. Those bonds would pay off in the form of a star-studded cast joining him for his 2022 debut album Cross Country, featuring appearances from the aforementioned Urban, Guyton, Lady A and Thomas Rhett, with writing contributions from Sam Sumser, Sam Hunt and Hardy to name a few. Some of these same friends and more have performed at “Breland & Friends” too. A rolodex of this kind usually belongs to artists who have already proven themselves with a string of hit records. In Breland’s case, he garnered all of this support in less than five years.

“Country music is a space where being of value to the environment in which you’re working trumps everything,” says Nashville-based country music reporter Marcus K. Dowling, about how and why Breland can already be surrounded with such talent. “So if you’re an A-plus-level songwriter or if you’re a fantastic arranger-producer-composer and you’re also somebody who understands exactly what a vocal should sound like and you can do all of these things like Breland can? Then when you put him into those rooms, he is immediately a person of great value.”

The success of “My Truck” came at a time when genres, especially hip-hop and country, were beginning to flirt with each other more often, as more artists began to try different styles in hopes of reaching a larger audience. While the song’s clever songwriting and clean production kept it from being seen as a gimmick, there was still a hint of “oh that’s different” to the tune.

But since then, more Black artists who were well known in rap and R&B are stepping into cowboy boots, making it look normal while making history in the process.

In 2022 we saw Chicago drill rapper Lil Durk link up with country bad boy Morgan Wallen for the hit song “Broadway Girls.”

The following year former Love & Hip Hop cast member K. Michelle announced she was leaving her R&B career to start a new one in country. In spring 2024, Beyoncé’s single “Texas Hold ‘Em,” from her album Cowboy Carter, was replaced at the top of Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart by Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” marking the first time two Black recording artists consecutively occupied the chart’s No. 1 spot. (Both songs peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, too.) In the months after that we’ve seen Quavo of Migos enter the country chart with his Lana Del Rey collaboration “Tough,” and LVRN, a label known for acts like 6lack and Summer Walker, sign its first country artist, Tanner Adell, off the strength of her trap-tinged country song “Buckle Bunny.”

Where many artists could view more people entering a lane as competition for attention, Breland still views it as an opportunity for everyone to thrive. But, as he stands on the sidewalk between Pride’s statue at the Ryman and the National Museum of African American Music right across the street, he does have a place in mind where competition could be welcome.

“I think country music and hip-hop are two sides of the same coin,” Breland says. Both genres, he says, are about telling stories.

“The BET Awards would be a great space where you could have an award for Best Country Artist, Best Country Album and let it be by the culture for the culture,” says Breland, well aware that the awards show is being taped in Los Angeles the same weekend we are speaking. As of 2024, there are no country music categories at the awards show. “We’re still probably a couple years away from that, but I do think it would be great, because we’re probably not going to fully be able to break down some of those other barriers within the country music world. So why not try something else?

There’s a lot of artists in this space now that are making music at a high level. And I just think that exposure on a night like that would be really dope, man.”

In Nashville on October 2, Breland joins Brothers Osborne, Shaboozey, Priscilla Block and more at Red Bull Jukebox, a live music experience where fans rule the setlist. For tickets, scan the QR code.

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Portfolio

JAKE MULKA The photographer has a talent for capturing intimate moments on stage. Here he shares country’s engaging warmth at Stagecoach.

BY NORA O’DONNELL 22

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Eric Church

JAKE MULKA

Carrie Underwood

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that’s truly captivated him is the festival’s atmosphere, as you can see in the below image of Ryan Bingham.

“There’s a unique warmth and a certain romance to the way the light falls there at golden hour. The dust kicks up and you have all these beautiful silhouettes of people dancing to country music. For some reason, there’s something about Stagecoach where I feel like I can pull out very intimate moments.”

Ryan Bingham

Zach Bryan

“I remember the joy of the hobby when I was younger, and I wanted to pursue that,” says the Detroitbased Mulka, who started shooting photos when he was 7 years old. An avid skateboarder, he attacked learning photography from every possible angle as he got older. “My father is a musician. I never had musical talent, but I wanted to understand it, to photograph it and express myself in that way as an artist.” he adds.

At Stagecoach, the iconic country music festival in Indio, California, Mulka has witnessed the rise of newer artists like Zach Bryan, as well as the commanding power of megastars like Carrie Underwood and Eric Church.

But, he says, the one thing

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Charley Crockett

Lana Del Rey and Paul Cauthen

A Stagecoach attendee

Breland

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Mulka had hoped to capture Lana Del Rey on the main stage at Coachella, Stagecoach’s sister festival, which occurs two weekends earlier, but his camera was stolen. Luckily, he got a tip that she would be making a surprise appearance with Paul Cauthen at Stagecoach. “It was serendipitous,” he says. “I got to photograph her perform in this genre-bending moment in an intimate little set. It was just magic.” Above, Charley Crockett shows off his vintage cowboy style, while our cover star, Breland, busts out some of his signature dance moves (facing page, top).

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Lola Kirke

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Orville Peck

“I’ve wanted to capture Orville Peck in my own style for a very long time,” Mulka says. “When he walked out on stage in his full getup, dressed to the nines, it was so cool.” For Mulka, shooting the style at Stagecoach is a highlight.

“There’s a beauty in country fashion that some people don’t understand,” he says, “an ornate set of boots or a really awesome hat. There’s such an appreciation here.” Above, the actress and singersongwriter Lola Kirke kicks off the 2024 festival while donning a cherry-red outfit.

At right, newcomer Levi Turner embraces the wolf motif.

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Levi Turner

JAKE MULKA

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“What is country? Country is an interpretation. It’s subjective,” Mulka says. “You can bring your own flair to being country, and I think that’s more present in this current age of the genre. It’s lovely to see the evolution and capture it, because it’s a moment in musical history.” On this spread, Mulka captures some artists of this moment within the genre, including Bailey Zimmerman, Luke Combs and Brittney Spencer. Of Zimmerman, Mulka says, “He really bared his heart and soul—so much energy.”

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Ornately bedazzled boots

Brittney Spencer

Bailey Zimmerman

Luke Combs

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COUNTRY FRESH

For years, the music series Whiskey Jam has championed Nashville’s newest sounds.

NORA O’DONNELL

Every night in downtown Nashville, a swell of live music pours out of the crowded bars on Broadway Street. Some honky tonks embrace the early days, where cover bands play “White Lightning”—a rockabilly hit made famous by country artist George Jones in 1959—on steady rotation.

Then there are the celebrity-backed watering holes that lure in boot-clad tourists with Dolly Parton standards.

Workin’ 9 to 5? What a way to spend vacation. But for those seeking discovery, there’s a beacon of new music tucked

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inside a gastropub near the corner of Fourth Avenue.

Every Monday and Thursday night on a small stage on the second floor of Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row, aspiring artists showcase original tunes to a curious crowd. As patrons down cold beer and stiff shots, a bearded man sporting a baseball cap, polo shirt, shorts and running shoes jumps up to the stage and introduces each group with a childlike giddiness.

“Golly!” he exclaims. “The bands tonight are really, really incredible. I’m fired up!”

The unassuming host is Ward Guenther, Nashville’s ultimate hype man. As the co-founder of Whiskey Jam, Guenther has spent the past decade giving some of the freshest talent in the country music scene an outlet to perform, often at a moment when they’re on the cusp of major success.

Some of today’s brightest stars— including Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Lainey Wilson and countless others—have graced the tiny stage, and since the music series launched in 2011, nearly 400 No. 1 singles have been written or performed by Whiskey Jam alums. And this October, Whiskey Jam will host Red Bull Jukebox, where Shaboozey, Brothers Osborne, Priscilla Block, Tucker Wetmore, Breland—and other artists—are slated to perform in Nashville. If anyone can claim he has his finger on the pulse of country music, it’s Ward Guenther.

Of course, it wasn’t always that way. Before Guenther became an arbiter of taste in Music City, he was slinging drinks at a bar while chasing his own dreams of becoming a musician.

“I moved here after college and didn’t know anybody,” says Guenther, who graduated from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in 2003. “I went out every single night to a different music event, and I completely fell in love with the social scene in Nashville and the friends you could make.”

Over the years, Guenther’s network grew as he hustled to make it as an artist. He wrote songs, signed up at open mic nights, played in cover bands and toured as a backing musician. During his early years in Nashville, he noticed there was a chasm between the more subdued nature of

Samuel Harris, Jason Myers

Whiskey Jam co-founder Ward Guenther, left, with his current managing partner, Ryan O’Nan.

“I want to keep the real nucleus of what we do the priority— keeping the magic of music in its purest form.” songwriter nights, where people hung on every word, and and the higher engery of a band showcase or an informal jam with friends. What if there was a way to marry those elements and make it really fun?

The answer came through a fortuitous text message, in a tale that has become Whiskey Jam legend. Guenther was about to go to bed when a friend pinged him, Let’s go play some music. It was a rare night off, but Guenther rallied.

This was the reason he moved to Nashville.

“We just played for fun,” Guenther says. “It wasn’t a gig.

It was just for the joy—the purest night of sharing a good time with your friends.”

The next day, Guenther sent out a tweet thanking everyone for coming out for the “first-ever Whiskey Jam.” Immediately, his friend and first business partner, Josh Hoge, recognized the potential of creating an atmosphere where anybody could come play, discover new music, meet new people and have fun. Hoping to recreate the same ambience, they texted everyone they knew—about 250 songwriters, signed artists, session and touring musicians—and invited them to come out and jam. And everyone showed up, including Brett Eldredge, Chris Young, and Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood of Lady A. “Immediately out of the gate, it’s funny how effective it was at filling that gap,” Guenther says.

As the years have passed, Whiskey Jam has become its own ecosystem. Every Monday and Thursday night, Guenther books a handful of acts to perform. Some bands come to him through a submission form, while others come through suggestions from friends. Every lineup is different by design. “I’m very conscious of it not

Before he had three No. 1 country albums, Luke Combs wowed crowds on stage at Whiskey Jam. Since then, he’s become a regular fixture of the music series.

being ‘Ward Guenther’s Whiskey Jam,’ ” he says. “I try to book bands that I don’t know. It’s opened my eyes to new bands, and I think it’s the best approach to attract the most people in the widest variety of fans.”

“I can say on a regular basis, you’re probably not going to like everything you see, but you’re going to like a bunch of it,” Guenther continues. “It’s like a sampler platter, and it’s great for this generation. You’re not going to a twoand-a-half-hour concert of one band; you’re getting a 24-song mixtape. It’s all different. And in a Nashville setting, it’s hard to have a bad time.”

Now, 13 years and nearly 1,000 shows later, Whiskey Jam remains the same at its core. During one Thursday-night show in late June, the lineup includes acts from all over the country, such as Rodell Duff from Houston, and the Deltaz, a brother duo from Los Angeles. “I don’t expect you to know half of these bands,” Guenther tells the crowd. “But that’s the beauty of it.”

It’s also not unusual for bigger names to make an appearance at Whiskey Jam—Keith Urban, Randy Travis and Chris Stapleton have all dropped in. Raspy-voiced rocker Melissa Etheridge reached out when she wanted a real Nashville experience. Even NFL legend Peyton Manning hopped onstage to sing his rendition of “Rocky Top” while Guenther strummed along on his guitar.

There have been missed connections, too. One time, an artist opening up for Justin Bieber sent him a DM on social, but that week’s lineup was stacked and Guenther didn’t recognize who it was. His name was Post Malone.

“That is my biggest regret,” Guenther says, emphasizing that Post has an open invitation to come to Whiskey Jam whenver he’s available.

“Through the years we’ve had so many amazing artists,” Guenther says. “But over and over again, I get most excited about these random occassions where an artist will play and you’ll see a different reaction in the crowd. We saw that with Luke Combs.” Indeed, before Combs had multiple No. 1 hits on the country charts, he submitted to play Whiskey Jam and wowed the audience with his soulful appearances.

Other artists swing by just to watch. Shaboozey, who at press time topped the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Country charts with his summer smash “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” has stood in the crowd on several occasions. “He’s drawn to our event as a cool place to hang and meet people,” Guenther says. “We were trying to figure out a time for him to come play, and then he blew up.”

Thankfully, Guenther has found a bigger stage. On October 2, Shaboozey will be joining the lineup at Red Bull Jukebox at the 6,800-capacity Ascend Amphitheater in Nashville. “I’m so glad we’re having this event where we can bring him into the Whiskey Jam family, where we can mix together what he stands for and what we stand for,” Guenther says. “As Nashville evolves, I want to make sure we grow and serve more people, get more music to more ears, and keep the real nucleus of what we do the priority— keeping the magic of music in its purest form.”

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COUNTRY Playlist

TRACKS

DREAM CHASER

Nashville-based singer-songwriter Priscilla Block on the songs that inspired her to empower others through music.

WILL LAVIN

Priscilla Block is as unapologetic as they come—and she wouldn’t have it any other way. The 28-year-old singer-songwriter found fame thanks to her 2020 viral hit, “Just About Over You,” but it’s her bold stance on body positivity and self-love (as heard on songs such as “Thick Thighs” and “PMS”) that earned her a loyal fan base. “I struggled with my confidence for years, but now more than ever I love myself and I want people to feel that way, too,” she explains. Here the country star highlights four songs that played a huge part in her growth as a musician and empowered her on the path to stardom.

KACEY MUSGRAVES

“Follow Your Arrow” (2013) “This whole song is just about being who you are and never letting anyone change you. Kacey’s songwriting is what inspired me to write a song like ‘Thick Thighs,’ and I think it’s songs like this that inspire artists to put out music that promotes the importance of being who you are and being unapologetic about it.”

JASON ALDEAN

“The Truth” (2009) “As an artist you always want to make timeless music. This is one of those songs that I can listen to on repeat, even now, and never get sick of it, and that’s inspiring as a songwriter and an artist who puts out music. It’s a really sad song, but for whatever reason it doesn’t make me feel sad.”

SHANIA TWAIN

“Any Man of Mine” (1995) “There’s so much empowerment in this song, especially when it comes to never settling, and it’s true in relationships, in business and just with the people that you surround yourself with. There’s a standard there and hearing a woman say it is awesome. Watching her play it live last year when I opened up for her on tour was the craziest full-circle moment.”

TAYLOR SWIFT

Priscilla Block’s new EP, PB2, is out now. See her live in Nashville at Red Bull Jukebox on October 2; redbull. com/jukebox

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Britton Webb

“You’re Not Sorry” (2008) “Taylor Swift has always been a huge inspiration to me. I love that she’s not afraid to be too specific in her songwriting. This was the first song that I ever learned on piano when I was about 13. Shortly after, I wrote my first song on the piano; it was the start of me being an artist and my songwriting journey.”

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SonLam

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THE RED BULLETIN QUARTERLY

Karlo Ramos/Red Bull Content Pool

In May, SonLam Nguyen won the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final in Atlanta. As he prepares for the World Final in Mumbai, the dancer shares his secret to a winning mindset—powered by an unshakable calm.

BATTLE CULTURE

THE SEEKER

WORDS BY GLORIA LIU PHOTOS BY MARÍA JOSÉ GOVEA

SONLAM NGUYEN

SonLam Nguyen was photographed at a botanical garden in West Los Angeles in June.

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BATTLE CULTURE

SONLAM NGUYEN

In May, at the Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final in Atlanta, the audience crowned Nguyen the winner at the end of a fierce, bracket-style competition featuring 16 elite dancers from around the country.

Jesus Presinal/Red Bull Content Pool

When I first meet SonLam Nguyen on a humid,

cloudy morning in Los Angeles, I’m sweaty, frazzled and over 30 minutes late. Having grossly underestimated how long it would take to retrieve my rental car from the hotel valet and then drive in increasingly frantic circles around a parking garage trying to find a spot, I’m now finally here, power-walking through the botanical gardens where I’m meeting him and a photo crew hired by The Red Bulletin. By the time I find them near a hillside of pink and white wildflowers, my heart is racing and my armpits are damp.

But then I meet SonLam. Wearing his tightly cropped hair and flowy windbreaker pants, he shakes my hand politely, exuding a monklike composure that’s impossible to stay freaked out around. As we walk to the next setting, he turns to me and his wife, Yasmin Kimberly Nguyen, who is here to support.

“Everything look good, guys?” he asks in a light Vietnamese accent. I immediately feel my nervous system revving down.

Lam, as his friends call him, is the reigning U.S. champion of Red Bull Dance Your Style, a unique event where dancers of all street styles—from hip-hop to house to popping and locking— battle one another through a bracket-style competition, with the audience choosing the winner of each round. This is the 29-yearold popper’s second time to win a Red Bull Dance Your Style event; he also won a regional qualifier in Oakland in 2022, during his first run at the series. This November, he’s heading to India to compete in the world championships in Mumbai.

It’s an unlikely outcome for a dancer who’s only lived in the U.S. since 2017 and who remains relatively unknown compared to other Red Bull Dance Your Style champions, with a modest 15K followers on Instagram. The shoot is mostly quiet as he flows from one pose to another, directing himself. At a wooden bench, he hooks his foot under the armrest and leans back, going horizontal, his gaze soft and serene. “Are you kidding me?” the photographer says aloud, snapping away. In front of a stand of bamboo, he tries one pose and then another unselfconsciously, then realizes

something is missing. “Can you put the music back on please?” he graciously asks Yasmin, who wears her brown hair in a voluminous ponytail, her dimpled smile framed by two long tendrils.

Watching Lam, I’m intrigued. I want to know how this gentle personality wins not only battles but the hearts and minds of raucous street-dancing audiences. I’ll soon learn that, in addition to obvious talent and discipline, Lam’s understated surface belies another secret weapon: an inner tranquility that’s been forged and honed like a sword.

After the shoot, Lam, Yasmin and I walk a few blocks to lunch.

On the way, we chat easily about strength training (he just got a personal coach), yoga and cold plunging. For several years Lam has been practicing Wim Hof’s methods of breathing and cold exposure via daily cold showers. But recently, he began taking ice baths. In February, he sat in a freezing river in Aspen, Colorado, surrounded by snow. He’s also taken it too far: Once he stayed submerged in ice for 20 minutes, then got sick afterward, nauseated and shivering nonstop. “That’s when I realized my mind was stronger than my body,” he says. Now he does 10 minutes max. But he enjoys finding his limits.

Lam was born in a large family, the baby brother of two older sisters. His mom’s siblings and parents also lived with the family, about 20 people in total all under the same roof of a large house in the center of Saigon. He grew up surrounded by his uncles, aunts, grandmothers and cousins, and he was a good kid, rarely in trouble. At 15, he watched the Jabbawockeez win America’s Best Dance Crew and became obsessed with dancing, learning through YouTube videos. Soon, a reputed local crew invited him to join them. “But I said no, I want to be in a crew that’s not famous,” he says. Like in the movies, “I wanted to start from the ground up.”

Lam was drawn to another local dance outfit called X Clown Crew, which was brand new. “They said we’re going to be the first professional street-dance crew. No cursing, drinking or smoking,” THE RED BULLETIN

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Nguyen’s secret weapon is an inner tranquility that’s been honed like a sword. He has a goofy side, too.

he recalls. “And we’re going to practice hard, like athletes.” This approach resonated with Lam, even at his young age. His mentors in X Clown Crew instilled in him the value of preparation, one he still holds to this day. “The battle is already happening, now,” he says. “[Mumbai] is happening now.”

Lam won dance competitions in Asia in his teens. At 19 he got his big break, winning his country’s edition of So You Think You Can Dance. After that, people recognized him on the street. But he didn’t feel like he was being himself. He felt creatively underdeveloped. On the show, he simply completed challenges; he didn’t yet have his own voice or style. He wanted to go somewhere where no one knew who he was, where he could isolate and dive deep into freestyle, without being subject to anyone’s expectations.

“When I get comfortable,” he says, “I tend to do something harder.”

In 2017, Lam moved to the U.S., landing in the Southern California city of Lawndale and studying dance at a local community college. The goofy young man from Vietnam became shy and quiet, shut off from much of the world by a cultural and linguistic barrier. He didn’t get why people laughed about certain things. He wasn’t always able to convey humor himself.

But Lam had come to the U.S. to learn and to grow. One of his core beliefs is that adversity makes you a better person.

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“I don’t really fit the mold of what people envision as a street dancer.”

BATTLE CULTURE

He bought an old bike and rode it in all conditions, choosing a heavier rig on purpose to make the task harder. He relished the rain especially—pedaling through a downpour, he imagined that he was the protagonist of a movie, like Rocky Balboa. “It was so exciting,” he says. “Every time the hardship came, I was like, OK, let’s go. I’m the main character. Let’s go through this.” He laughs when he tells me this, knowing it sounds ridiculous. Lam has perhaps my favorite combination of personality traits: He’s cerebral and idealistic, without taking himself too seriously.

Thousands of miles from his mentors and his family, the people who unconditionally supported him, he had to learn to support himself. In the U.S., he says, “I’m my own coach. I have to be a better friend to myself, a better coach to myself.” He started journaling, writing down his thoughts, almost a way of having dialogue with himself.

He talked to himself during competitions, too—if a song came on that he didn’t know, which happened often because he didn’t grow up with American music, he wouldn’t say, I’ve never heard this song, how can I do it? He’d say, Let’s play, I love this. He assembled a library of role models in his head—his mom, his best friend from his crew in Vietnam—and he pulled them down from the shelf like favorite books, whenever he needed their strength and love.

SONLAM NGUYEN

BATTLE CULTURE His second semester at the community college, he went to a dance audition. During the audition another dancer took a fall, but Lam improvised, helping her up and incorporating it into the routine. The improv impressed the choreographer, another student. She asked a friend, Who is that guy? The friend said, “He’s from Vietnam. He’s so good, but he doesn’t talk to anyone— he just comes to school, dances and then leaves.” The choreographer decided she would talk to him.

Lam had noticed this classmate a few days earlier, laughing with her friends. She dressed in baggy sweats and big T-shirts, no makeup, hair in a messy bun, but she was beautiful. Her name was Yasmin.

Yasmin and Lam started hanging out every day. “I brought him out a lot,” Yasmin recalls. “I’d tell my friends, he’s funny!” And he was. Lam might deploy fewer words than everyone else, but he could make them count. He had a knack for dropping deadpan punchlines that got the group rolling.

Lam is grateful for some of the harder, more isolating experiences of those early days. They made him more empathetic, for one thing. Not everyone was welcoming to him at events, though they got nicer when he started winning. Now when he walks into a room and sees new people in a corner, he goes out of his way to say hello. “I wish somebody would have come up to me,” he says. “So I’ll be that person for them.”

Lam is remarkably, disarmingly open. We sit down for lunch at an airy, upscale restaurant in the courtyard of a museum, and he tells me that the botanical garden was a very appropriate location for the shoot. “It fits me,” he says. He takes inspiration from various sources, including nature, and an urban setting wouldn’t have felt authentic. “I don’t really fit the mold of what people envision as a street dancer,” he says.

I ask what he means by that. Seemingly referring to feedback he’s either received or perceived, he tells me that sometimes, people think “maybe you don’t do that move as street, or as raw, or it doesn’t bring that dirtiness.” He continues, “Sometimes I feel out of place, you know? As a person who immigrated from Vietnam to here, a lot of things I’m not knowing.” Even in rap music, he doesn’t always understand the slang or lyrics. He connects instead with the visuals and movement the music inspires.

But the first principle of street dance, he believes, is that you have to be yourself. During his earlier years, he felt like he was wearing a mask. “I think the first step of learning something is that you really want to be a good imitator,” he says. “You want to fit in and do things right. But after you dance for a long time, you start to want to be comfortable with what you do and look in the eyes of people you love and say this is me completely.”

In the U.S., with so much time spent in solitude, Lam became deeply acquainted with who he was. For a class, he mixed a Jaden Smith song with a Vietnamese song and performed a solo, meant to convey the feeling of being an international student in the U.S. His teacher cried. Lam was struck that he’d moved her so deeply.

After that, he told himself, “Just keep doing things that align with you, that are honest.”

Over the years, he’s gained more courage to dance in the way only he can: by infusing his popping foundation with other disciplines, like contemporary and modern. His style includes theatrical flair, as he often conveys emotions through his facial expressions, too. The more authentic he is, the more people respond. “The audience likes to see somebody being themselves.”

To be clear, Lam is also crazy talented, with superhuman mobility. “He’s made of rubber,” says friend and mentor Jordan McLoughlin, 36, who also comes from popping and

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SONLAM NGUYEN

“He’s able to move with energy and harness it in a really beautiful way.”

BATTLE CULTURE

SONLAM NGUYEN

“He’s made of rubber,” says friend and mentor Jordan McLoughlin.

“His body can twist and fling itself in ways I’ll never touch.”

teaches and competes. “His body can twist and fling itself in ways I’ll never touch.”

He continues, “He can move with energy, but a lot of people, when they try to apply that energy, they lose control and things get sloppy. But he’s able to harness that in a really beautiful way.”

McLoughlin, who met Lam in 2017 and has trained with him over the past several years, has watched his friend grow and evolve, soaking up new influences in L.A., but balancing those infusions with fidelity to his roots. “I’d say in the last couple years he has reestablished a sense of responsibility to adequately express his popping foundation,” McLoughlin says.

In 2022, Lam got the call-up to the first Red Bull Dance Your Style Regional Qualifier in Oakland. He was ecstatic. “I made the list!” he tells me of his reaction. “Like, ‘I made it mom!’ I was so happy.” The next three months he trained hard. He and Yasmin had transferred to San Francisco State to complete their bachelor’s degrees, and they lived close to Golden Gate Park.

Lam would wake up at 5:30 a.m., take a cold shower (“freezing!”

Yasmin interjects), go to the gym, lift weights for two hours while Yasmin was still asleep, come home, eat breakfast with her, go to school, take dance classes, come home, do homework and repeat. “That was a beautiful time,” he says.

During intensive training blocks such as this one, Lam keeps what he calls a personal scoring system. He carries his journals everywhere, and now he pulls a spiral-bound notebook out of his backpack to show me exactly how his system works. He scores himself daily for hitting certain goals, like meditating or journaling, as well as three main categories of dance-related training goals: physical conditioning, technique and creativity.

If he completes a task—a workout, for example—he gets a point.

Each month he has a total points goal; say, 30 points. That way, if he has a slow day where he only scores three points, he can make up for it on another day with five. “I like to feel like I’m achieving before I step into a competition,” he says. If he surpasses his monthly goal, “I get an A+.”

Lam’s system fills him with confidence. By the time he arrived at the competition in Oakland, he tells me, he felt like he had already won. And then when he actually won, he thought, “I put in the work.”

Generally speaking, there are two types of goals: outcome goals, which are based on results, such as “Win the competition.” And process goals, which are structured around the steps one needs to take to achieve a result, such as “Train an hour daily until the competition.” Outcome goals are often partly dependent upon factors outside of one’s control, while process goals are almost

always based upon actions one can choose to take. Research has determined that setting process goals tends to improve athletic performance more than results-oriented goals; they do more to increase an athlete’s sense of self-efficacy (the feeling that one has agency over outcomes), decrease their anxiety and boost their motivation.

When I tell Lam about the concept of process goals, he lights up.

“This makes sense!”

It is Lam’s instinct to control the controllables. Two years ago, when he competed at the 2022 Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final in New Orleans, just a couple of weeks after his victory in Oakland, he lost in the final round to David “The Crown” Stalter Jr., a Red Bull Dance Your Style world champion finalist from Minneapolis. Lam’s physical stamina failed him, he tells me: His mind wanted to keep going, but his body gave up. Meanwhile, he noted, his opponent had “a full tank.”

It was a valuable lesson learned. After that he put himself in uncomfortable situations in order to build endurance in both body and mind. Thus began the ice baths and more physical conditioning. He used to find the infamous seven-minute bus fight scene from the film Nobody difficult to watch (it was so violent it made him lightheaded), so he forced himself to watch it again and again. He and McLoughlin ran 45-second sprints up stair sets to mimic the intensity of 45-second battle rounds.

They did a session where they didn’t break eye contact for 10 minutes straight (“extremely uncomfortable,” McLoughlin says), because being able to stare down your opponent while maintaining flow is a valuable battle skill.

The benefit of chasing process-oriented goals is that regardless of the outcome, you will feel like you achieved something. This is true, of course, not only in sports. In life, we can only control our actions and our effort. But if you do the work, Lam knows, you can be proud, whether you win the battle or not.

On the morning of the 2024 Red Bull Dance Your Style National Final in Atlanta in May, Lam woke with intention. He wanted to carry calmness throughout the day, so when he got out of bed he moved slowly: He got some sunlight on his eyes, did some stretching and mobility; he didn’t look at his phone. He drew a picture of himself in his notebook, visualizing his intentions for the night: a stick figure with a spiral over its shoulder (“circles are endless, so when you get stuck, circular motions”), an explosion for a hand (“in popping we have the idea of the pop, like a rocket exploding”) and muscular legs (“my strongest body part are my legs”).

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BATTLE CULTURE

“It fits me,” Nguyen says of the botanical garden setting. With his art form, he takes inspiration from various sources, including nature.

SONLAM NGUYEN

When the organizers allowed the dancers to come out to the stage, he examined every corner of the platform. He wanted the area to feel familiar to him, like home. He walked up to the speaker and said, “Hello, speaker.” He sat in various seats to see how the audience would see him. He lay on the floor and thought, This is my home. He walked around the event space in search of shy-looking people and shook their hands, thanking them for coming.

Near the beginning of the night, it rained, putting the outdoor competition on hold. The contestants got cold and stressed. The energy plummeted. Lam told himself, I love it. If they tell us to dance in the rain, I’m ready. When the competition finally resumed, he tried to treat each battle like it was the final.

The slippery floor got in his head a bit, but he could see that everyone had to deal with the same conditions. During the final round, he was in the zone. Before the audience even raised their wristbands for the vote—red for his competitor, blue for Lam—he already knew the result.

The lights dimmed. He looked around. A sea of blue circles glowed in the dark.

“I think we need more examples of people in a competitive space,” Jordan McLoughlin says, “for whom humility is a weapon.”

Lam, he says, is fundamentally humble, a quality that facilitates his success by keeping him open to learning. But McLoughlin calls it an “advanced humility.” “It’s not just that he’s nice,” he says.

“His humility is a weapon.” He explains: “It’d be very easy to be as talented as he is and think ‘I got this.’ I don’t need to take in more information. But on the flip side of that, if you’re too open to new perspectives and you have no sense of self, that will lead you to be watered down.” Lam knows his worth, and that allows him to grow without losing who he is. That worth comes from a deep well of confidence, one earned by ticking off the small, stepwise goals each day—and knowing the results will follow.

When Lam won in Atlanta, he danced on stage with a friend, the two smiling and hugging. But when he went home, he did what he always does. He sat in his room alone. He asked if he was happy with himself, if he felt aligned. He wrote down his thoughts in his journal. He thought, This is a big deal, but it’s just a dot on my journey. I’ll keep climbing bigger and bigger mountains.

And he felt at peace.

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BATTLE CULTURE

S K R A P ECK R W

estyle e r f h s Spani ull Batalla. f o t n eme s to Red B v o m e ing th m city park d AS S a e l s o ILLEG TIM MARR i r V f s D C e R r M BY CHA on of —everywhe

BY RI STRATIONS i t S i l D R a O U o W ILL Ac e U.S. h t n i rap

Ian Witlen/Red Bull Content Pool, Karlo Ramos/Red Bull Content Pool

BATALLA

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BATTLE CULTURE

Meanwhile, in a circle under the shade of an old tree, a group of rappers are duking it out—verbally—in the throes of a regional freestyle tournament put on by BDM (Batalla de Maestros). In this particular match, Argentine rapper and graffiti artist Zazo Wan is facing off against Mexican tongue twister Arian, spirited barbs flying and beads of sweat rolling down both their faces.

Two months later, a similar scene unfolds on stage at the Red Bull Batalla USA National Final in Dallas, where Zazo Wan is going up against Cuban rapper Reverse in the tournament’s heartpounding title match. This time, the MCs sweat under the high beams of the popular venue Gilley’s, surrounded by a crowd holding up flags from their respective countries, while beloved host Racso White Lion narrates the match with the heightened gusto of a soccer commentator. But the energy is palpably different. Gone is the laughter and collegiate casualness of the park, and instead each rapper is puffed up and red-faced, like bucks ready to lock horns to the death. Yes, there’s a trophy on the line, but digs about weight gain, betrayal among friends and drug abuse cut deep. Once the battle concludes, the exhausted MCs shake hands and clap for each other, followed by the announcement that Reverse has prevailed over his opponent, to roaring crowd approval. The tension that filled the room minutes ago dissipates into collective elation, capturing the thrill and fierce competitiveness fueling one of the fastest-growing art forms in the United States.

“You need to win on the stage and still hold your own in the park,” says Zazo Wan, zeroing in on the dichotomy between freestyle rap’s clandestine training grounds and the glitzy, cutthroat tournaments attracting legions of fans across the country. In less than a decade, a once-nebulous underground of Spanish-speaking MCs has grown into a nationwide movement with fertile enclaves in Miami, Los Angeles, Dallas and New York City. Trailblazing leagues such as Dioses de la City and Urban Rap Stars have generated buzz with stacked calendars and an organizational structure that pipelines promising local upstarts to national renown. For the artists—most of whom are Latin American immigrants—improvisation circles have also become

welcoming communities away from their ancestral homelands.

Add to the mix viral rap battles unfolding at tournaments south of the border, plus a galvanized generation of wordsmiths eager to join the international conversation, and you have the makings of a zeitgeist-defining phenomenon. More often than not, that story begins in the park.

“Competing at Red Bull Batalla is the zenith of our industry and comes with unique prestige and opportunities, but you have to pay your dues locally as well,” adds Zazo Wan, who emigrated from the mountain city of Mendoza, Argentina, to the sprawl of Dallas in 2019. “It’s important to hone your reputation in the circuit, because sustaining a long-lasting career requires building relationships with your colleagues. Sometimes it’s not even about competing.

Just show up to the park, hang out and exchange bars with friends.

Being present and participating keeps the culture moving.”

Freestyle culture has been in motion for quite some time. After all, it’s a discipline predicated on ingenuity rather than budget and academic access, which in turn creates a universally leveled playing field. It’s one of the five elements of hip-hop alongside DJing, graffiti, breaking and the oral histories crucial to the movement’s survival. Since hip-hop was born in the Bronx in the mid-1970s, the borough’s vibrant Puerto Rican diaspora brought these buzzy new forms of songwriting and storytelling back to the island, which quickly proliferated across the Spanishspeaking world.

It makes sense that in 2005, Puerto Rico hosted the first international edition of Red Bull Batalla at San Juan’s iconic Club Gallístico, the cockfighting coliseum that would inspire the tournament’s avian branding for years to come. In its maiden voyage, the competition drew buzzy MCs from all over the Americas and Spain, anointing Argentine rapper Frescolate as the series’s first world champion and renewing excitement among the Ibero-American hip-hop community. A tidal wave of tournaments followed—Freestyle Master Series in Spain, El Quinto Escalón in Argentina, Supremacía MC in Peru and BDM in Chile—supercharging the battle scene and fostering some of the greatest talents to ever hold a mic.

The faces of Red Bull Batalla (left to right): 2023 international champion Chuty; 2019 U.S. champion Yartzi; 2022 U.S. champion Oner; 2023 U.S. champion Reverse; host Racso White Lion.

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Juan Valero/Red Bull Content Pool

It’s September 2023, and the Texas heat is scorching. The sea of patrons at San Antonio’s Hemisfair Park is out in hats and shorts, with fully stocked coolers in tow.

BATALLA

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Below: Boricua rapper Yartzi (holding mic) battles Venezuelan-born rapper Oner while Racso White Lion looks on.

“You need to win on stage and still hold your own in the park. It’s important to hone your reputation in the circuit, because sustaining a long career requires building relationships.”

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Ian Witlen/Red Bull Content Pool (3), Roger Ho/Red Bull Content Pool

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pose the biggest challenges for MCs who are still on the come-up. To support competitors, his organization records all matches, producing videos that can be added to every rapper’s portfolio. Likewise, sponsorships and enrollment fees go toward awarding competitive monetary prizes, or even flights to out-of-state contests.

A DJ drops the beat.

Chuty and Reverse go head to head.

Though both founders of Dioses de la City hail from the Caribbean metropolis of Red Bull Batalla also continued to hold its annual jousts, Santo Domingo (the capital of the Dominican Republic), the pair constantly bouncing between various host nations and with only a transformed their personal passions for rap into a grassroots brief hiatus in 2010 and 2011. However, the tournament would not movement out of Queens, New York. Green recalls the first time return to the United States until 2019, when it took over Miami’s El Dilema invited him to one of his “shows,” which turned out to be a cypher among friends on the corner of a local laundromat.

Wynwood Factory and drew more than 2,000 attendees. Defeating Undeterred, they continued to meet, relocating to the verdant Mexican rapper Jordi in a riveting duel packed with boom bap and old school reggaeton beats, Boricua rapper Yartzi emerged Flushing Meadows Corona Park with a growing roster of MCs. as the first champion of the organization’s newly minted national Soon they’d be partnering with BDM and Urban Rap Stars for chapter. But don’t mistake this homegrown triumph for the regional events. genesis of the U.S. Spanish freestyle scene, because in reality that El Dilema diligently fought his way to the top of the country’s win was the culmination of efforts that had begun long before. freestyle rankings, placing second at the 2020 Red Bull Batalla USA “I pretty much created the Spanish-language rap battle circuit National Final. On the other hand, Green recognized that his in the U.S.,” says an assertive Alfredo Molina, a.k.a Moha, founder lyrical chops wouldn’t cut it on stage, so he pivoted into organizing of La Liga de la Calle in Los Angeles. Before arriving in California and judging. He’s since sat on panels at tournaments in Colombia, in 2013, the rapper and promoter would hold events called Garage Peru and the U.S. and built relationships with freestyle leagues Battles at his grandmother’s home in El Salvador. In L.A. he was back in the Dominican Republic. But evaluating and comparing met with a primarily English-speaking scene, and even though he razor-sharp wits is only half the job when rappers on the stage hail occasionally took the stage in front of largely Black audiences, from dizzyingly different backgrounds. where he was positively received, the insurmountable language “Judges need to have broad cultural knowledge, since in the barrier dulled the punch of his bars. “I’d vent to my Mexican and United States you’re dealing with people from many different Salvadoran friends that the scene here was dead,” he remembers, countries, all in the same competition,” says Green. “New York is so “and they’d reply, ‘Then we have to revive it.’ They looked to me diverse, with so many Mexicans, Central Americans and Caribbean as that game changer, so I pushed to start meeting [at Salt Lake people, that immersing yourself in these cultures is how you learn Park] in 2016.”

Though La Liga de la Calle held its first competition the following year, word of how L.A. organized to form its own scene quickly spread on social media. Soon small crews in other cities launched leagues of their own: Liga Masacre in Houston, Dioses de la City in New York, the Match Freestyle in Chicago, Miami Freestyle League and Indigo FL in Orlando. The snowballing movement prompted the 2019 stateside revamp of Red Bull Batalla and brought in touring tournaments such as BDM, DEM Battles and Misión Hip Hop. And when the pandemic shutdown threatened to stunt the scene’s Herculean progress, online battles were folded into the new normal with ease. These strides have amounted to a rapidly industrializing freestyle infrastructure that did not exist at the top of the 2000s, built through the street-level work and consistency of local organizers.

“I believe the future lies in reinforcing regional circuits,” says Moises Santana Vidal, a.k.a. Green, who co-founded Dioses de la City alongside Dominican rapper El Dilema back in 2017. Since its inception, the league has focused on developing the Northeast circuit, tapping into vast, active hip-hop communities thriving in New York and New Jersey and seeing opportunity for growth in Connecticut. Green highlights distance as one of the biggest reasons the U.S. scene hasn’t fully broken through, since crossZazo Wan is a leader of the freestyle scene in Dallas. country travel expenses and time away from day jobs and family THE RED BULLETIN

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Oner—pictured here with El Dilema, Macias and Niko B—cut his teeth battling in the Miami Freestyle League, the first of its kind in Florida.

After winning the Red Bull Batalla Regional Qualifier in San Antonio, Jordi (right, battling LinkOne) will be competing at the National Final in Miami this October.

Jeremy Deputat/Red Bull Content Pool, Juan Valero/Red Bull Content Pool

BATALLA

to catch the terminology and references. Slang varies, and so do hot topics, so a judge needs to be aware of all of it.”

Scrolling deep through the archives of the Miami Freestyle League’s YouTube page, videos dating back to 2018 show groups of teenagers gathering at Downtown Doral Park, all fresh-faced and squeaky clean, as if plucked out of a wholesome afterschool special. But the bars are solid, and soon familiar faces begin to appear: Eckonn (third place at Red Bull Batalla USA 2021), Nico B (second place at Red Bull Batalla USA 2022) and Reverse (winner of Red Bull Batalla USA in 2021 and 2023). One especially cinematic clip from 2019 finds MCs Reverse, Huguito and Carlitos engaged in a nighttime battle underneath a jagged rock sculpture called “Micco,” created by Miami Beach contemporary artist Michele Oka Doner. Though Reverse easily bests his opponents, the segment is a strong example of the vibrant youthfulness that has elevated Miami as the new titan of U.S. freestyle.

Venezuelan visionary Sebastian Avendaño created the Miami Freestyle League when he was 16, inspired by the battle videos he would watch on social media with his high school friends. As Florida’s first Spanish-language league, its contests became a rite of passage for any local rapper worth their salt. Reverse would come down from West Palm Beach, while Red Bull Batalla USA 2022 winner Oner commuted from Tamarac. Both MCs were 19 the first time they won the national championship. Word of Avendaño’s growing organization crossed state lines, and eventually Red Bull Batalla tapped him for promotion and talent selection for the tournament’s fateful 2019 return. Amusingly enough, the same youthfulness that put him at the movement’s vanguard kept him from attending the event, since he was underage.

“As we grew up, so did the scene,” recalls Avendaño, noting how swelling numbers led to noise complaints, which drove the league out of the park and into enclosed venues that helped formalize their dealings. This year, however, Red Bull Batalla USA returns to South Florida and Avendaño will attend, representing DEM Battles, the meteoric Chilean league that merged with his own in 2022. The success of Miami’s freestyle scene has also dovetailed into the financial and cultural capital of parallel happenings like the Miami Grand Prix, Art Basel and III Points Music Festival, producing unique regional synergy drawing audiences and tastemakers eager to discover the next global trend.

“The arrival of Red Bull Batalla made people look at us differently,” says Avendaño, reflecting on Miami’s fortified reputation. “We’re no longer kids rapping in plazas, but rappers freestyling at important tournaments. Back when I started, a good date used to draw 15 or 20 guys, but my most recent event had 70 MCs and 300 spectators. We’ve even pulled heavyweight stars like Nicky Jam, Tiago PZK and Micro TDH, and I’m sure industry brass is also coming through looking to scout talent.”

Clearly, the next step for U.S. freestyle is to begin launching its own stars, which will require an active and disciplined social media presence and carefully selected labels and collaborators who can contribute to an MC’s growth. These are time-tested strategies; just look at how Duki, Trueno and WOS parlayed victories in Argentina’s iconic Quinto Escalón circuit into critically acclaimed, stadium-filling artistic careers. The same goes for Mexican FMS legends Aczino and Yoiker, who are celebrated among Spanish freestyle’s all-time greats. Both took the stage at the 2023 Red Bull Batalla World Final in Colombia, performing in front of a sold-out crowd of 14,000 people at Bogotá’s Movistar Arena. The event also marked the international debuts of Oner and Reverse; in fact, the most promising U.S. candidate for a crossover career is Reverse, who has already signed a record deal and begun teasing cuts from an upcoming, genre-voracious project.

“There are so many Latinos who love this scene and feel that because they’re away from home their shot has passed,” says Racso White Lion, one of U.S. freestyle’s most emblematic voices.

Synonymous with Orlando’s powerhouse scene, the Venezuelan rapper and organizer co-founded Indigo FL alongside his business partner Scarface in 2020, frequently meeting off the lake shores of Eagle Nest Park. However, Racso shifted from competing to hosting the events, earning the moniker of Mr. Pasión for his electrifying stage presence and eventually becoming the de facto presenter at Red Bull Batalla USA. Racso underscores that the audience holds more power than they know, able to turn the tides of a competition by getting behind a floundering MC, as well as supporting their career long after they’ve snatched a trophy. But for U.S. freestyle to transcend, the connection between audience and artist must be cultivated, as the art form evolves to accommodate new voices. Organizers would also be wise to encourage a larger presence of women at their competitions instead of relegating them to the sidelines. In 2019, Canary Islands rapper Sara Soca unleashed an impassioned diatribe against femicide while competing at a Red Bull Batalla tournament in Mexico, going viral and proving that women are an untapped market that could catalyze the movement’s next chapter.

But again, that change needs to begin in the park.

“A lot of people have asked where we were, but we’ve been in the same plazas for eight years,” says an emotional Racso. “It’s been a matter of getting the word out and making noise, and now that we’re reaching more people, they know we’re here to stay. Forever.”

Who will claim the title of Red Bull Batalla National Champion in Miami this October and earn the right to represent USA in the World Final in Spain? Scan the QR code for more information.

“We’re no longer kids rapping in plazas, but rappers freestyling at important tournaments.”

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CULTURE CLASH

In Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the crowd blasts air horns to show their support at Red Bull Culture Clash, where the audience decides which crew will win the boisterous music competition.

At Red Bull Culture Clash, four of New York City’s most

traditions come

Edwina Hay

to life in an epic music battle full of surprises.

WORDS BY CARLY FISHER

vibrant parade

BATTLE CULTURE

ven in New York City, it’s not every day that you can immerse yourself in a sea of iridescent revelers clapping for death drops in front of the biggest sound system imaginable. Or hear a performer laying down a blistering solo on an amplified erhu, the two-stringed instrument popular in Chinese folk music. Or witness famed rapper and producer Wyclef Jean and Joshua Nesta “YG” Marley dub 60

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Whitney Houston B sides while the guy next to you blasts an air horn strapped to a power drill to show his support. These are just a few of the unexpected scenarios one can expect to encounter at Red Bull Culture Clash.

With more than 200 languages spoken across its five boroughs, NYC is the quintessential melting pot of culture, and the locals know how to throw a parade that showcases this diversity. The city hosts

CULTURE CLASH

Daniel G. Weiss (2), Ryan Muir (2)

At the 2024 Red Bull Culture Clash, four crews participated in a music battle while repping four distinct parades (from left): Pride, Lunar New Year, Puerto Rican Day Parade and West Indian Day Parade.

around 60 parades a year—about five each month— drawing millions of spectators. This tradition, which dates back to the American Revolution, has evolved to become a grand celebration of processions that fuse historical charm with modern panache.

Bringing these dynamic parades together in a unique competition, Red Bull Culture Clash salutes the diversity and energy that make New York City truly special. Four teams, each repping a different

cultural parade—Lunar New Year, Pride, Puerto Rican Day Parade and West Indian Day Parade— come together and face off over four rounds to bring the noise and claim the crown.

Returning for the first time since 2022, this year’s epic showdown on June 1 in Brooklyn turned up the heat by merging the energy of New York’s finest dance and DJ crews with the essence of each parade. Here’s a look at the highlights.

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NYC PRIDE PARADE

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Kicking off Red Bull Culture Clash and repping the NYC Pride Parade was Papi Juice, an LGBTQIA+ art collective celebrating queer and trans people of color. During the performance, queer-coded iridescent folding fans were dispersed to the crowd, who enthusiastically clapped along to a soundtrack of club-mix favorites like Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé. Backup dancers held up signs saying “For Sylvia” and “For Marsha,” in honor of activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, while multihyphenate performers like DJ Mazurbate, Maya Margarita and drag legend Essa Noche all came to “werk.”

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About the Parade The NYC Pride Parade has its roots in the Stonewall Riots of 1969, when the queer community stood up against police raids at the Stonewall Inn. The first Gay Pride March in 1970 commemorated this uprising.

Today, the parade attracts more than 2 million people from around the world.

Rosalind O’Connor (4), Daniel G. Weiss (3), Ryan Muir

LUNAR NEW YEAR PARADE

CULTURE CLASH

Asian media platform Eastern Standard Times gathered a powerhouse crew that came full force to represent New York’s Lunar New Year Parade. Hitmakers like Bohan Phoenix, Jay Park, Sunkis and Slayrizz brought the culture while backed by dancing dragons; musician Chiiwings, of the cybermetal quartet P.H.0., stunned the crowd with her incredible erhu solo; and R&B star Pink Sweat$ turned up to show his support.

About the Parade NYC’s first Lunar New Year Parade dates back to 1997.

Initially modest, with floats made from lumber yard trucks, it has grown to attract around 500,000 spectators annually, featuring up to 20 floats and dancers donning Chinese dragon costumes.

The culture that brought us Tito Puente, Rita Moreno, Fat Joe, Bad Bunny and one of New York City’s biggest—and loudest—parades did not disappoint.

Alternative Latin media outlet Remezcla delivered a distinctively Nuyorican flavor, including spots from duo Nina Sky, rapper J.I. the Prince of N.Y., DJ Bembona and Christian Martir with Capicu!

Legendary Latin Grammy–winning choreographer Violeta Galagarza was also on hand to usher in the next generation of Nuyorican dancers.

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About the Parade Replacing the Hispanic Day Parade, the Puerto Rican Day Parade first marched in 1958. It has since evolved into a massive event celebrating Puerto Rican culture, drawing more than 1 million attendees.

Annie Schutz (5), Daniel G. Weiss (2)

PUERTO RICAN DAY PARADE

BATTLE CULTURE

Edwina Hay (3), Daniel G. Weiss (2), Ryan Muir (2)

WEST INDIAN DAY PARADE

CULTURE CLASH

Modern urban parades and carnivals owe much of their roots to Jamaican/Caribbean sound system culture, making the act by collective No Long Talk a tough one to beat. Just like the West Indian Day Parade on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, the stage featured a huge replica of a semi truck with dancers in full Carnival attire.

While the crew blasted everything from reggae and dub to a Michael Jackson remix, No Long Talk’s secret weapon turned out to be a cameo from Wyclef Jean and Joshua Nesta “YG” Marley, helping this fan favorite to rightfully snatch the Red Bull Culture Clash crown, as yellow streamers exploded in the sky.

About the Parade The West Indian Day Parade began in the 1930s in Harlem and later moved to Brooklyn in 1969. Known for its dazzling costumes, vibrant music and delicious street food, it celebrates Caribbean culture and attracts 4 million spectators annually.

To learn more about the history of the parades that inspired this year’s Red Bull Culture Clash in NYC, scan the QR code.

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2024 ISSUE 3

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Trevor Moran/Red Bull Content Pool

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Bryan Soderlind

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WORDS BY PETER FLAX

Wakeboarder Parks Bonifay is an all-time great.

But his legend is still being written.

J YRIDER

PARKS BONIFAY

Bryan Soderlind/Red Bull Content Pool

WATERSPORTS

PARKS BONIFAY

This story, like the legend’s life story, will

begin and end in a high-powered towboat barreling toward the horizon. Let’s set it in Central Florida—at a lake with warm water ringed by cypress trees and blanketed by a heavy blue sky. This is the universe our hero was born into and the one he will inhabit until his heart stops beating.

Parks Bonifay is piloting a throaty MasterCraft XT22 on a June afternoon on Lake Minnehaha, 30 miles west of Orlando. His corgi, Pardi, is curled at his feet. His fiancée, Paige, and his mother, Betty, sit near the stern, staring at water and sky with the tranquil faces of people with experience meditating on boats.

You might ask why the story of a man who arguably is the greatest wakeboarder of all time doesn’t open with hyped-up action. After all, Bonifay has won world championships with jumps and grinds that stretch the boundaries of physics and human potential. He has been towed by helicopters and a Formula 1 race car.

selling juice cleanses and Instagram fantasies, but with Bonifay we’re talking about an actual way of life.

Betty was a bit unsteady walking from her son’s house to the dock, but now she’s sliding into the water with her swivel ski and a confident grin. From the captain’s chair, Parks eases the XT22 to cruising speed and suddenly the 73-year-old is carving carefree turns and taking stabs at tricks she perfected in the 1970s. “Yeah Momma!” he shouts, as Betty lifts one leg off the ski and slides a foot into the handle. The two exchange high-fives when she climbs into the boat. “Momma’s still got it,” he says.

“It’s a cool circle that now I can pull her like this.”

After that, Parks jumps in the water with a new toy, a foil, and Paige pilots the boat as he explores how aggressively he can slalom on it. Then we just cruise through a series of interconnected lakes as Bonifay tells stories. About commentating wakeboarding events around the world and janky hotel adventures on Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway and the (unreleased) album he recorded in

Alternatively, this tribute could open with a scene that illuminates the ways he has remained relevant for decades in an action sports culture that celebrates youth and novelty. Or it could begin with a story that highlights how he dispenses wisdom and inspiration to a generation of wakeboarders.

To be honest, Parks Bonifay is all of these things—the otherworldly athlete and showman who transformed a sport and has remained beloved by evolving while remaining authentic. He is like Tony Hawk (minus $100 million or whatever)—the guy who lifted a niche sport to new heights and will forever be part of the culture.

Sure, fans came to know and love him because he could do sick shit on a wakeboard. But the soul of the legend is here on the lake, because being on a boat with his people doing the thing he loves is where everything begins and never really ends. The word “lifestyle” has been soiled in recent years, hijacked by folks

Nashville. At one point he cuts the motor so we can float near a bald eagle’s nest; the majestic bird stares down at us as two ospreys skim the waterline nearby. Dark clouds start assembling, so Bonifay fires up the motor to head home.

We get to his covered slip as drizzle turns to fury. Bonifay says we should sit tight because the torrent won’t last long. Mother and son recount her tricks from earlier and the time he did a flip off a kitchen counter when he was 5 to impress a babysitter. The sun is shining seven minutes later. They both have easy smiles as they walk up the dock to his house.

“My mom has always told me to put fun first and that’s engraved in my DNA,” Parks says a few minutes later when asked about the vibe out on the water. “Because if you have fun doing something, you’re going to do it forever. And that’s my goal: To do this forever and have as much fun as possible.”

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Bonifay family roster (clockwise from top left): Betty, 73, who waterskied and performed at Cypress Gardens in the 1970s; Parks, who has leaned into his funloving side in the most recent chapter of his storied career; and Pardi, a young corgi who like the rest of the clan loves to hang out on towboats.

Probably no individual in human history has spent a greater percentage of their life behind a power boat. Every athlete’s journey is shaped by their past, but in Bonifay’s case, his entire career arcs around the beautiful circle he was born into.

It began in the 1940s, when his paternal grandfather got passionate about the nascent sport of waterskiing. He fabricated his own skis and built a makeshift ramp and hosted family hangouts every weekend. The obsession only grew with Parks’s dad, Pete, who spent his free time dreaming up and perfecting new waterskiing tricks, determined to earn a spot at Florida’s first theme park, Cypress Gardens, like a little leaguer might plot out a journey to Yankee Stadium. Eventually he got the call, joining the most prestigious waterskiing show on Earth.

Parks’s mom also loved to ski. Betty met Pete at a gig at the newly opened Disney World and before long they were married and working together at Cypress Gardens. Pete was badly injured in a motorcycle crash that threatened his ability to waterski, but rather than give up on his dream, he perfected his barefoot skiing tricks and integrated hand gliding into his act. Pete and Betty’s life—and then the life of their kids—revolved around showmanship.

It is safe to say that Parks had an atypical childhood. When he was an infant, his father pulled him around the lawn on miniature waterskis. And when Parks was 6 months and 29 days old, Pete took the tot out on the water with the folks from Guinness there to certify the world record. Parks became an actual celebrity, known as Ski Baby. It hardly ended there. He was employed fulltime at Cypress Gardens, working 32 hours a week until he was 7.

“I was hanging out with professional waterskiers every day,” Bonifay recalls. “Getting better was all I thought about.”

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There is a clip in a 2009 documentary that shows him at the age of 4 practicing tumble turns—transitioning from riding on his back, with his bare feet gripping the rope, to standing and riding barefoot. With his head bouncing on the choppy water, he has a few gnarly face-plants. Back in the boat, his dad gently asks, “Do you want to try one later?” To which the kid replies, “I want to try one more”—and then gets back in the water and nails the trick.

“Yeah, I ate shit so hard before I was 5,” Bonifay laughs when asked about that clip. “But it gave me a lot of grit and taught me the importance of fundamentals and how to fall the right way.”

Before he was 10, Bonifay had absorbed more technical knowledge about multiple watersports and the finer points of showmanship than many pros ever learn.

As he got older, his focus shifted to competitive waterskiing.

Bonifay competed in a discipline called 3-event, which combines slalom, jumping and trick contests. He was good enough to be a top junior, but he never won a major competition. And though he continued to work hard and sharpen his talents, he felt stifled.

Fortunately, a newish sport called wakeboarding, which drew inspiration from snowboarding, was gaining popularity. Bonifay got to see some of the sport’s pioneers and the discipline’s freestyle spirit. So when he was 12, he made the switch.

To say that this transition was a success is like saying Aretha Franklin turned out to be a pretty good singer. In 1994, he won the first tournament he entered—it happened to be the junior world championships. His full potential became clear in 1996, when he won his first pro event, en route to a season-long tour title, capped by gold at the sport’s X Games debut. As action sports were blowing up, Bonifay was the right kid at the right moment.

Bryan Soderlind (2), Robert Snow/Red Bull Content Pool, Bill Doster/Red Bull Content Pool

WATERSPORTS

“All the big jumps I’ve done—each one is like jumping off my house.”

PARKS BONIFAY

WATERSPORTS

Bryan Soderlind

In recent years, Bonifay has found his groove doing some outrageous barefooting stunts, include Heli Toe (above) and his memorable ride behind an F1 race car in Barefoot to Miami.

PARKS BONIFAY

The coronation came at the 1999 X Games in San Francisco, where Bonifay, only 17, won again, joining young athletes like Hawk, Travis Pastrana and Dave Mirra as newly minted legends.

“He definitely was the only wakeboarder who was going to VIP parties at the X Games,” laughs Erik Ruck, a wakeboarder who has been a friend and collaborator for more than 25 years. “Even if he didn’t actually have a VIP pass or wasn’t old enough to get into a bar. All the big athletes and ESPN understood he was in the inner circle, and he had the nonchalant confidence to pull it off.”

Bonifay had successfully transitioned from a showman prodigy to an elite waterskier to an emerging action sports star. But in retrospect, his evolution was just beginning.

At this point, Bonifay was riding on a level beyond everyone else.

In 1999, for instance, as other top pros were trying to land a 900, Bonifay landed a switch toeside 1080. But far from complacent, he was evolving in ways that would alter the trajectory of his career—and the sport. Wakeboarding’s rise paralleled the fervor around skateboarding and snowboarding and more freestyle interpretations of many other sports. And despite his dominance, he was still perceived as a waterskiing crossover, wearing gloves and traditional wet suits and otherwise seeming out of sync with wakeboarding’s rising punk-rock subculture.

That changed quickly and emphatically. For a glorious taste of this pivot, google the film 12 Honkeys. This masterpiece, released in 2000 (five years before YouTube launched) is magically weird and thrilling. In Bonifay’s part, set to a thrashing track by punk stalwarts Powerman 5000, is technically breathtaking, wry and undeniably raw. The gloves and the wet suit are gone, replaced by a mohawk and savage style.

He joined a collective called Pointless Productions, which his younger brother, Shane, had founded. As snowboarders began playing with rails and other park features, the Bonifay brothers and the Pointless crew blasted that energy at wakeboarding. “For us it was just great—we were just hanging with our friends and taking turns filming and riding together,” recalls Brian Grubb, a pro wakeboarder and Pointless member who became friends with Bonifay when they were kids. “Then we put out our first video part and it kind of changed the industry. There was a lot of new rail riding and other big stuff that people hadn’t seen before.”

Ruck agrees. “A new era of wakeboarding erupted, with Parks at the forefront,” he says. “And Parks fully reinvented his riding.”

Somehow, Bonifay’s dominance only grew. “As riding rails became a big part of the sport, he excelled in that format as well,” Grubb recalls. “So when rails became part of pro events and everyone started doing a combination of tricks behind the wake and rails, he was pretty much unbeatable.”

Massi Piffaretti, an Italian pro and former world champion who moved to Orlando and met Bonifay when he was 15, says the impact of this creativity can still be felt today. “Back then, the only features people were riding were these flat bars that could get boring,” he says. “So Parks and that crew were like, screw that. We’re going to build our own rails and build them gnarlier than anything. They started this movement that changed everything.”

Bonifay won five world championships in this era, but the legacy of his technical innovation goes deeper than that. “It’s insane just how far ahead of the game he was,” says pro wakeboarder Guenther Oka (who was born two years after Bonifay turned pro). “I’ll be out training and do this awesome

trick and wonder if I invented something. And then I’ll go back to talk to people and realize he did it in some part 24 years ago.”

“Where the sport is now is built on his shoulders,” Piffaretti says. Today’s boats are far heavier and more powerful than they were 25 years ago, he notes, which means they can generate far larger wakes. “But Parks was just sending it back then. To do tricks the way he was doing them, he had to be perfect.”

For a decade or so, Bonifay ruled the sport, and it seemed like nothing could stop him. But ultimately his knees disagreed.

“I am 42 now but my right knee is like 60,” Bonifay jokes, unwittingly insulting the average 60-year-old knee that has not absorbed tens of thousands of cartilage-crushing impacts and hundreds of high-torque yard sales. “All the big jumps I’ve done— each one is like jumping off the roof of my house,” he says. “My dad went through the same thing. I really felt like I had to go back to the drawing board, to figure out how to evolve into the next big thing.”

Maybe he didn’t know it at the time, when he was helping orthopedic surgeons pay off vacation homes and enduring long rehab stints and coming to grips that he wasn’t going to win another world championship. But he knows now that this chapter has helped clarify his career objectives.

When asked to cite the athletes he most admires, Bonifay names Muhammad Ali, Kelly Slater and Travis Pastrana. Pastrana and Bonifay, among the first American athletes sponsored by Red Bull, linked up in the ’90s. “The way that Travis has evolved—from motorcross dominance to rally car success and a media franchise with Nitro Circus—he’s always made me feel like there’s no ceiling to what I can do,” Bonifay says. “And though he seems like a loose guy who goes full throttle with tricks, Travis is very calculating and understands risk versus reward as well as anyone.”

The love is mutual. “Parks has evolved into such an awesome human,” Pastrana says. “He’s had so many experiences—like being the world’s best at a sport before he was out of his teens—but I’m impressed how he found ways to keep doing what he loves. This wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t so smart and passionate.”

Not surprisingly, Bonifay became a regular participant in various Nitro Circus and Jackass projects. He has waterskied off a ramp wearing a jet pack and leapt onto a giant inflatable blob in the Panama Canal and backflipped on a child-sized trike and been “shot” by pretend duck hunters as he catapulted into a lake while wearing tighty whiteys (in a scenario that isn’t worth explaining).

The ascension of YouTube and Instagram opened doors for some athletes to expand their careers beyond pure sport. Bonifay hurled himself through that door. It allowed him to be filmed carving turns on icebergs in Patagonia and getting towed by Tahitian icon Raimana on the famed break at Teahupo’o. “I got a chance to do many things that had never been done before,” he says.

“Parks has shown everybody across all sports that if you stay true to your creativity and treat people with love that you will have a long, fun career,” says skater Ryan Sheckler, yet another action sports legend who has known Bonifay for 20 years.

Bonifay’s creativity was on full display with a barefooting clip in 2022. Much like his father, Bonifay has leaned on and upleveled his barefooting skills, breathing new life into an old discipline. And for a video building excitement for F1’s arrival in Florida, Bonifay barefooted through an alligator-infested canal in the Everglades behind an Oracle Red Bull Racing car that hit 70 mph. Those are a bunch of words that have never appeared next to each other.

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“Parks always comes up with ideas that no one’s ever done,” says Brian Grubb (center), who leaned on Bonifay for help with his WakeBASE stunt.

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“If you have fun doing something, you’re going to do it forever,” says Bonifay, who appears to be living out that mantra.

Bonifay’s commitment to progress the sport can also be felt through an event he created called Red Bull Double or Nothing.

Held in Orlando, the winner-takes-all event is structured to encourage pros to attempt their biggest trick—something too consequential to attempt in a standard competition. It’s like a home run derby for wakeboarders. Last year, a young pro named Thomas Herman fully embodied the event’s spirit by becoming the first person ever to land a triple flip from behind a boat. In the telecast, Bonifay is ecstatic after Herman lands the seemingly impossible rotation. “I went absolutely crazy,” he admits. “I lost my voice in one minute. It brought tears to my eyes because I created that event just for a moment like that.”

Herman and other pro wakeboarders interviewed for this story have stories that illuminate his larger-than-life personality. The way he can bring a crowd to life when he’s commentating pro contests. The way he can play the guitar and shoot pool and operate a drone with ridiculous competence. The way he’ll lay down his signature party trick—a sick belly flop—to add stoke to a perfect afternoon. The way he shares his love of watersports with kids and strangers and super-competitive pros alike.

Bryan Soderlind, Naim Chidiac/Red Bull Content Pool

“That was a super gnarly trick; there are very few people in the world who could pull that off,” says Ruck. “He was going faster than anyone ever needs to barefoot.”

Bonifay says they only had time for five tries and that once he was over 60 mph the water’s surface was like a rock. But the biggest challenge was not getting pulled into the riverbank by the cable attached to the race car. “The rope was so low on the car and the surface of the canal was like ice,” he says. “The whole time I was like rule No. 1 is don’t hit the shore.”

No doubt because he has spent his life riding and redefining what’s possible in the water, Bonifay has unparalleled wisdom about how to safely break new ground. So not surprisingly he has gotten more involved mentoring other top wakeboarders.

Many pros have stories about how Bonifay has helped them advance their careers. Oka, for instance, asked Bonifay for some help with preplanning for Wake Glades, a film project exploring the possibilities of wakeboarding behind an airboat in the Everglades.

Bonifay stayed on as a creative consultant. “He was my ideas guy,” Oka says. “The impact he had was priceless.”

One day on set, Bonifay saw the flat-bottomed airboat do a 360 spin in shallow water and it reminded him of an old waterskishow stunt where a driver whips a skier into a 360 around the boat. So he suggested they use the airboat in a flipped scenario— where Oka could ride in a straight line as the boat did a 360. “It was so cool how his brain took those pieces and put it together in a way that no one else did,” Oka says.

Grubb had a similar experience during the ideation and execution of WakeBASE—in which he completed a wakeskate-toBASE jump from the highest infinity pool in the world in Dubai.

Grubb says that it was Bonifay who suggested that he use a giant drone instead of a human pilot. And on the morning of the fateful leap, with a tight time window looming to do the stunt, Grubb noticed the angle of the ramp was not exactly right but decided he could definitely make it work. But Bonifay pushed him to tweak it to perfection even if it inconvenienced the crew. “He always has insights into how to do something the right way.”

Piffaretti agrees. “I try to involve him in all my big projects because he knows a wakeboard and boats better than anybody,” he says. “I always want Parks next to me in those situations.”

PARKS BONIFAY

“He’s impacted so many people in our community, it’s kind of incredible,” says Grubb, noting that he’s met more than a few guys at boat shows who have named their dogs or even a kid Parks.

“He’s the man. I love that guy.”

As promised, this story will end with our hero barreling toward the horizon behind a high-powered towboat. It’s a few weeks after the family outing on Lake Minnehaha, and now Bonifay is with a crew of friends and collaborators at Blue Lake, a round, crystalline-blue body of water two hours south of Orlando.

Among those here are longtime wakeboard friends like Grubb and Ruck, and aerobatic helicopter pilot Aaron Fitzgerald.

Bonifay is filming a project called Heli Toe. In the final clip, Bonifay segues from helicopter to boat back to helicopter with some barefooting in between. It’s at once crazier and more controlled than it sounds. After tossing a line to the boat below, Bonifay jumps 20 feet from a landing skid on the helicopter into the lake, beginning a so-called deep-water start. Though serious barefooters would only do a deep-water start in a technical

neoprene suit for added buoyancy and protection, Bonifay is wearing casual shorts and a T-shirt (“It’s harder this way and I think it looks cooler,” he quips). He barefoots behind the boat and the helicopter swoops down. He then grabs a skid, does some onelegged barefooting off the helicopter and ends with a backflip into the drink after the chopper lifts 25 feet into the air.

The whole thing has the spirit of a stunt his parents might have tried to thrill Cypress Gardens patrons with 50 years ago, amped up and perfectly executed to rise above standard social media fare. “I’ve been imagining this trick for years,” Bonifay admits. If you watch the clip and a longer behind-the-scenes video, you’ll likely notice the joy that Bonifay radiates. You can see how happy it makes him to be part of the circle that connects him to his origin story and his evolution. In the end, Bonifay has achieved greatness not by doing something but by living something.

Ruck could see it, too. “After his competitive career was over, Parks really focused on having fun ahead of everything,” he says.

“Especially after he got into barefooting, he just began portraying this side of being a waterman who can have fun while connecting with his parents. I feel it’s the purest form of who Parks really is.”

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Tom Williams/Red Bull Content Pool

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FOAM WRECKERS

Red Bull Foam Wreckers is the surf contest for people who are serious about being carefree.

WORDS BY PETER FLAX

Whether you’re getting a little crazy in the water or hanging with friends on the beach, the whole point of Foam Wreckers is building community and having a blast.

ompetitive surfing is many things, but a dependably low-key way to hang out with friends and express your goofy side is not one of them.

“A regular surf competition is a legit pressure cooker,” says Ben Gravy, a passionate waterman and creator based in New Jersey who jokingly calls himself a semi-pro surfer. “No one is talking to each other because there’s too much stress. The whole thing can feel exclusive and oppressive. I think the culture was ready for something totally different.”

This is why Red Bull Foam Wreckers was born.

Conceived in 2021 by pro surfer Jamie O’Brien, the event aspires to expose a broader demographic to the distinct pleasures of experiencing community and lighthearted competition. Gravy has been involved from the start, acting as an event host at stops all over the country. “Foam Wreckers is exactly what surfing needs,” he says, noting how the series brings out more women, families, friend groups and people of color than a conventional comp. “It’s a surfing event that’s also a party.”

Open to people of any age or skill level—even legit beginners—Foam Wreckers rewards creative stoke

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over traditional technical skills. “It’s basically the opposite of a regular contest,” he says. “You get good scores by truly expressing yourself.”

Before their heat, participants spin a big “Wheel of Shred” to determine what kind of soft board they’ll be riding—perhaps a boogie board, a 7-foot “log” or a 4-foot beater. (The boards are provided so participants can show up empty-handed.) “You have no control over what you’ll ride,” laughs Gravy. “And everyone’s friends gather to cheer or heckle them.”

Not that long ago, foamies were just for newbies, as serious surfers only rode high-performance fiberglass boards. But now, a far wider range of surfers have embraced the joys of foam. “I fell in love with them because they’ve doubled the amount of surf days I get in a year,” Gravy says. “You can have fun on them in nearly any conditions. I feel like now nearly every serious surfer has one in their quiver.

But they’re still friendly for beginners.”

Foam Wreckers participants are urged to leave their serious side in the parking lot and let their freak flag fly. “I love how folks show up in costume and play up an act,” Gravy says. “The scene has real Comic-Con vibes—people feeling totally comfortable being themselves. I guarantee you’ll never go to a surf contest where people are having more fun than this.”

Jenny Herron/Red Bull Content Pool, Pat Nolan/Red Bull Content Pool (2), Tom Williams/Red Bull Content Pool

WATERSPORTS

FOAM WRECKERS

Facing page: Ben Gravy hosts a Foam Wreckers event, and a participant gets ready to spin the “Wheel of Shred.”

This page: Two participants shred on foamies at a contest in Honolulu in October 2023.

CHAPTER WATERSPORTS

As these images— shot at contests in Cocoa Beach, Florida; Ocean City, Maryland; and Margate City, New J­ersey—attest, Foam Wreckers is nothing like a regular surfing competition. The real winners here are the folks committed to having an unserious day at the beach.

Robert Snow/Red Bull Content Pool, Pat Nolan/Red Bull Content Pool (3), Ryan Simalchik/Red Bull Content Pool

FOAM WRECKERS

Foam Wreckers is a surfing contest that’s also a party.

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FOAM WRECKERS

Pat Nolan/Red Bull Content Pool

There was plenty of action and stoke at a Foam Wreckers event in Ocean City, Maryland, this past June. There are contests scheduled in Honolulu and Cocoa Beach, Florida, this October and December, respectively.

WATERSPORTS Maui Relief

On September 8, 2023, Kai and Molly Lenny helped lead a massive paddle-out in Maui to lovingly honor the onemonth anniversary of calamitous fires on the island.

SURF HEROES

Kai Lenny and the Maui surf community are honored for their heroic response to a devastating fire.

PETER FLAX

Big-wave surfing is all about quick, decisive and highly intentional action. The stakes are too high for anything else. These tenets apply to both the very best athletes, who have built a life testing themselves on the biggest waves—pro surfers like Kai Lenny—and to the community of people dedicated to the safety of those who paddle out.

This way of life is especially vibrant in a place like Maui, where a reverence for the ocean and a commitment to social responsibility run deep. Though these things are woven into the fabric of the island’s

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surf culture and exist 24/7, they become especially clear when the stakes are at their highest and people need a helping hand. And the stakes couldn’t have been any higher than they were in August of 2023, when Maui’s surfing community leapt into action after a generational fire razed the seaside town of Lahaina.

Stoked by atypically dry and windy conditions, this fire raced through and burned down the historic town on Maui’s northwest shore, killing more than 100 people. In the immediate aftermath of the inferno, survivors in Lahaina and nearby communities were cut off from potential relief efforts and in desperate need of supplies and other support.

This is when and why surfer Lenny and many others in the island’s surf community made an immediate and resolute decision to get involved, utilizing the equipment and procedures they often leverage for

“The award is for the entire Maui community, because everyone dropped what they were doing and turned up.”

Davin Phelps, Getty Images, Matty Schweitzer

The historic seaside town of Lahaina, located on Maui’s northwest coast, was devastated by a fire that swept through the community on August 8, 2023.

water safety efforts when a big swell hits the island.

“We train all year for water safety and to be the most efficient people in the ocean,” Lenny says. “We’re used to assembling really quick to go surf big waves. So in this case, in a matter of a few hours we were able to assemble and run our same big-wave program for a much more important reason.”

Rapidly deploying a fleet of nimble jet skis, Lenny and other locals were in the water at first light the morning after the fire, ferrying food, water, first aid, propane and other vital supplies to small costal hubs that could be accessed by Lahaina residents, who could not be reached by other rescue efforts because roads into the area were still closed.

That was part of a much larger coordinated effort. While Lenny and the jet ski army were transporting supplies to the shore, Hawaiian surfing legend Archie Kalepa used his front yard to establish a communication hub and supply depot. Kalepa also led a large volunteer team to get these supplies to the survivors who needed them most. And the effort was even bigger and more lasting than that. Dozens of other local surfers and watermen served as firefighters and EMTs, while others made and served meals—for months—to help those who had been displaced.

In those hours and days after tragedy struck, Lenny, Kalepa and all the other surfers involved were driven by instinct and concern and hardly had any personal

recognition in mind. Perhaps because of this obvious selfless and strikingly efficient response, the Maui surfing community was honored 11 months later, winning the ESPN Muhammad Ali Sports Humanitarian Award. In a ceremony folded into the network’s popular annual ESPY Awards, Lenny, Kalepa and a few other representatives took to the stage at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The award, given to athletes who create positive impacts on their community and embrace the values that Muhammad Ali stood for, has been handed out since 2015, with past winners including Albert Pujols and Kevin Durant.

At the ceremony, Lenny and Kalepa spoke to the A-list audience about the rescue effort and were quick to recognize the entire community they were representing on stage. “I just did the best I could to help, and so many people on Maui turned up,” Lenny told the packed theater and TV audience. “The award is for the entire Maui community, because everyone dropped what they were doing and turned up.”

For Lenny and the other heroes from the Maui surf community who couldn’t be present, it all circles back to the core values of the local culture. “With the aloha spirit you’re not necessarily thinking of the future or the past, you’re just living in the moment,” Lenny said.

“When you live that way, it’s easy to do the right thing.”

Maui surfers repping a larger effort at the ESPYs (left to right): Paige Alms, Andrea Moller, Archie Kalepa, Molly and Kai Lenny, and Matty Schweitzer.

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Paris Gore/Red Bull Content Pool

2024 ISSUE 3

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Robin O’Neill/Red Bull Content Pool

WORDS BY HEATHER BALOGH ROCHFORT PHOTOS BY RYAN TAYLOR

With the historic debut of a women’s Red Bull Rampage looming, freerider Hannah Bergemann is ready to launch her career to new heights.

HANNAH BERGEMANN

Bergemann, who has plenty of experience riding in southern Utah, is ready to soar in her Rampage debut.

BIKE

Ten years after she was gifted her first mountain bike, Bergemann, now 27, has become a top freerider.

HANNAH BERGEMANN

Hannah Bergemann has been called a lot of names.

Freeride pioneer. Legend in the making. Best and bravest. A standout. Boundary breaker. But when I finally manage to catch up with her for a video call, one label stands out: Busy. When we first email on Thursday, Bergemann is leaving Utah, where she helped produce a ton of promotional content leading up to the first-ever women’s Red Bull Rampage. By the time we connect via Zoom on Monday, she’s magically in British Columbia, where she’s training on the region’s big jumps and omnipresent trail systems.

As one of the world’s top freeride mountain bikers and one of the standout participants in the fast-approaching 2024 women’s Rampage, bouncing around the country and over international borders for her sport is normal for Bergemann. But it wasn’t that long ago that this 27-yearold from Hood River, Oregon, was shredding pow with her dad at Mount Hood and skipping school to watch Rampage live on television. Bergemann’s career has progressed alongside the evolution of freeriding, putting her on track to make some big moves. A lot has changed in less than a decade—and Bergemann is ready for the (free)ride.

For Bergemann, it was all thanks to a 2012 Ellsworth Moment mountain bike gifted to her by her father when she was 17. Before that, skiing was her adrenaline of choice.

Her parents would take her shredding at Mount Hood or Timberline Lodge on the weekends, and she caught the ski bus a couple nights per week after school. There, she’d night ski until they kicked her out, practicing for rail jams and half-pipe competitions. In some early foreshadowing, Bergemann notes that she was the only girl out there attempting some of the tricks. But it didn’t matter.

“I skied in the rain, any conditions, all the time,” she laughs. “I was obsessed. It was my obsession growing up.”

As a child, Bergemann would also watch her father head out for bike rides with his friends, and her interest grew. Eventually it turned into full-fledged begging, in an attempt to get her dad to buy her a bike. But he was reluctant. “He wasn’t sure about me getting into the sport because it’s a big investment, getting the bike and all the gear and stuff,” she says. “But he finally caved.”

When she was a senior in high school, Bergemann inherited her future in the Ellsworth Moment. It was a hand-me-down from her father, with 26-inch wheels and a large frame—wildly big for Bergemann. The duo swapped in a shorter stem to make it fit better and began riding together. They both loved the shared rides: “I was obsessed [with riding] and he realized it was awesome for us to have something to do together,” she says.

Surprising no one, their family bonding time on the trail quickly escalated from friendly rides to enduro racing. Enduro began in Europe and took its early cues from rally car and motorbike racing. The concept is simple: Bike to the top of the mountain and speed to the bottom as fast as you can. The uphill sections are required, but the downhill portions are typically the timed segments. Bottom line: The faster you downhill, the better you place as an enduro racer.

Despite riding a large bike and not even owning knee pads, Bergemann slapped down the cash and signed up for the local Ashland Enduro with her father. Just like that, she was hooked. Skiing took a back seat to riding as Bergemann continued to grow her skill set on a bike.

When it came time to choose a college, she knew that she wanted to continue with the sport. She registered at Western Washington University in Bellingham. It was just a bit farther north than her home in Oregon but was (and is) an epicenter for mountain biking.

“When I wasn’t in school or working, I was riding,” Bergemann recalls. “And then I also got a job at a bike shop so I could be even more immersed in the riding scene.

That’s how I could afford to buy all the bikes that I wanted.”

From 2015 to 2019, Bergemann lived dual lives. By day, she was a kinesiology and Spanish student who loved bikes but didn’t see them as a means to a future. By night, she was a ripping enduro racer who was in it for the challenge. Bergemann is the first to admit: Speed was never her first love. “If going fast in a situation is what sounds fun, then I’m into it,” she says. “But I don’t need or want to go fast all the time.”

Those are unexpected words from someone who was crushing a race circuit that rewards the fastest riders. By 2018, Bergemann was doing so well in her local enduro series that she decided to level up to the Enduro World Series (or, as of 2023, the UCI Mountain Bike Enduro World Cup). “It’s a much higher-level race than what I had been doing,” she explains. “It has way more challenging trails, way longer tracks and is more competitive.” With a race nearby in Whistler, British Columbia, Bergemann thought it would be fun to give it a try on trails that were both close to home and familiar. She was right—and ended up racing it as a pro.

Her enduro career continued to flourish. After graduating college in 2019, Bergemann came up with a plan to take a year off from adulting. She wanted to race a bunch before returning to school for a career in healthcare. “I thought I’d bike as much as I could and get it out of my system,” she laughs.

She started strong with a July 2019 win at the Trans BC Enduro, a six-day stage race in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. Known as arguably the toughest enduro stage race in the world, it calls for riders to tackle

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“My goal is to be that example and make biking inspiring.”

HANNAH BERGEMANN

Although she began her career as an enduro racer, Bergemann spent her spare time riding the gnarliest trails she could find with her friends. Eventually, the creativity she loved about freeriding became her calling card.

up to 6,000 vertical feet of climbing each day, along with technical singletrack littered in jagged rocks, pointy roots and open-slab terrain. Bergemann signed up for the soul-crushing event with her dad, which made the win extra special. “That was a really challenging six days of racing, because the trails were really gnarly and you’re riding everything blind,” she says.

Even as her star continued to rise, Bergemann still considered enduro racing to be her only option. “I really liked it, but I wasn’t super good at training or into fitness or even that competitive either,” she says. “It was really just this outlet to go explore new places and have an excuse to ride.”

Enduro was available and accessible, but it wasn’t as if female mountain bikers had tons of other options if they wanted to compete. According to Bergemann, most of the women she knew on her skill level were mainly racing downhill or enduro. “I didn’t have any concept of being a freerider in my head,” she says.

But even without the label, Bergemann now knows that what she was doing back then was freeriding. During her spare time and even while enduro training, she and her friends would ride the gnarliest trails they could find, with the goal of hitting the biggest jumps or the most demanding obstacles. It wasn’t about speed; instead, it was creativity, playfulness and individuality. Just like when skiing had ruled her world, Bergemann enjoyed the thrill of the challenge: new tricks, new features or new terrain. She just didn’t yet realize that playtime would be her calling card.

Enduro and freeriding are on opposite ends of the mountain biking spectrum. While enduro is hyperfocused on speed, freeriding doesn’t have any timing element at all. Instead of rally car racing, freeriding draws its inspiration and roots from the snowboarding world, where riders bomb down a line in the most creative and spectacular manner.

Often considered the most extreme biking discipline, freeriding is all about steepness and style, as the riders tackle vertiginous lines and outrageous features, all while throwing unique tricks and jumps along the way. For Bergemann, it’s an outlet for creative self-expression; an opportunity to showcase a piece of herself in a way that nothing else can. In fact, many freeriders build their own obstacles in an effort to create new or unrepeatable features that capitalize on their strengths as riders.

While speed isn’t a factor for success—getting to the bottom first gets you nothing—the scoring metrics in freeriding can be controversial. After all, how can biased human judges determine something as extraordinary and ambiguous as style?

For Bergemann, none of this felt relevant. While she enjoyed the playfulness of her rides with friends, she didn’t see any path forward in freeriding. “I had no concept of making a career out of it,” she says. “That wasn’t something that made sense to me at all.” She routinely skipped class to watch Red Bull Rampage— often considered the pinnacle of freeriding—live on television, but she just couldn’t piece together a world where she would be participating.

But the internet came through. During the summer of 2019, Bergemann stumbled across videos of Veronique (Vero) Sandler and Casey Brown hitting big jumps. Since Bergemann didn’t have any women in her immediate vicinity hucking huge tricks, this was a revelation. “I remember seeing [Sandler’s] videos online and that was pretty much it for me,” she says. “That was the first time that I was like, ‘Oh, maybe I should learn some tricks.’ ” Soon afterward, Bergemann was out riding with her friends when she received a call from pro freerider Katie Holden. The available information was laughably thin: “She just said, ‘Hey, put these dates on your calendar and make sure you’re going to be there in October,’ ” remembers Bergemann. “I was thinking, ‘Sick free trip to Utah to ride with my buddies!’ I love riding in Utah, so it sounded great.”

Bergemann didn’t realize it at the time, but she had just received an invitation to the first-ever Red Bull Formation. As the brainchild of Holden and in collaboration with Red Bull, Formation was a first-of-itskind, week-long progression session for female freeriders only. Set in the desert landscape near Virgin, Utah, and Zion National Park—also known as cliffs-and-canyon country—Formation paved the way for women in freeriding by providing large-scale opportunity. At the time, no women had been invited to Red Bull Rampage, so Formation was their chance to show the world what they could do on two wheels.

In a way, Formation took its cues from Rampage, but it was much more than a simple replication, as it was designed to solidify women’s freeriding culture and begin the journey into something more. During the inaugural event in 2019, the women dug up and resurrected old Rampage lines, building new features and obstacles that matched their skill sets. And because they were all riding terrain used at previous Rampage events, they proved they could hold their own on the same gnarly terrain as the men. But unlike Rampage, Formation was not a competition. There were no winners or medals. Instead, Formation was more of a jam session to celebrate and support freeriding women as they sought to challenge themselves and push their abilities to the next level.

Including Bergemann, six women were invited to the inaugural Formation: Vero Sandler, Tahnée Seagrave,

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Vaea Verbeeck, Micayla Gatto and Vinny Armstrong. For Bergemann, it was a literal dream come true. It was the first time she was given the resources to dig out, build up and then guinea pig (first-ever ride) a full line—and she got to do it with other elite women.

“It got me really excited, and I felt a lot more confident and capable afterwards,” Bergemann says. “That was where the spark started for me as far as thinking I could have a career as a mountain biker.”

She wasn’t the only one. Bergemann came into Formation as a bit of a dark horse, but her performance caught the eyes of everyone. A few months later, she shot Accomplice with Teton Gravity Research (TGR), a film dedicated to bikes.

“I remember thinking this is crazy and I don’t even know what I’m doing,” she laughs. “But it was a confidence boost that they could see the potential in me.”

Red Bull Rampage will be held in 2024 as a two-day event, on October 10 and 12. See more from Bergemann and the other riders taking women’s freeride mountain biking to the next level in a new series coming to Red Bull TV later this fall.

Early summer of 2021 brought her second voyage to Virgin for Formation, and in the fall, Proving Grounds brought Bergemann’s first competition as a freerider. She was off to a good start with a second-place finish.

The next year, she participated in a handful of non­ competitive events, like Darkfest, but she was making a different type of history not found on a podium. Founded in 2013, the celebrated gathering of invite-only free­ riders takes place in South Africa but historically had not included women. That changed in 2022, and Bergemann was honored to be one of the first-ever women to participate in the jump jam.

For Bergemann, pioneering this space is incredibly special, and she wanted to continue that growth and camaraderie for others. Inspired by her participation in Formation, she founded a women’s freeride event in 2021 in Bellingham called HangTime. The two-day event isn’t competitive but is more focused on its namesake: catching air on the jump line and hanging out with likeminded women.

“One of my biggest goals for my career is to be that example and make [biking] as accessible and inspiring as possible, because I didn’t have that,” Bergemann says.

HangTime enjoyed three consecutive years but unfortunately—or fortunately—it’s on hiatus this season.

That’s because Bergemann has her eyes set on arguably the biggest event of her career: Red Bull Rampage.

Earlier this year, freeriders around the globe celebrated when Red Bull announced that the 2024 Rampage would evolve to become a two-day event that would include a women’s competition for the first time in its 23-year history. For Bergemann, it’s emotional and surreal to realize that high school girls will be skipping class to watch her ride in the groundbreaking event.

Her goal: put down a clean run that makes her proud.

Beyond that, she is simply stoked to be a part of progress for future female riders.

“The other day I met this little girl, and she told me, ‘I wanna be in Rampage!’ ” Bergemann says. “She is 7 and she was going off about doing flips and stuff. It was so cool.

I can’t even imagine what the level of riding is going to be in 10 years.”

HANNAH BERGEMANN

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BIKE Postcard from a Pro

“I f el t l i k e I w a s i n a d i f f e re n t w o rl d — i t w a s s o tra n q u i l . Th a t a l l o we d m e to c e n te r m y sel f a n d g e t i n th e h e a d sp a c e to e x p l o re b i g i d e a s. ”

SCENIC GETAWAY

Pro bike racer Justin Williams shares an intimate look at a restorative Austrian adventure.

PETER FLAX

This past April, pro cyclist and L39ION team co-founder Justin Williams made a weeklong trip to Salzburg, Austria, to meet with Red Bull colleagues to discuss his ambitious vision for the sport and brainstorm some upcoming business ventures. While there was plenty of work to be done, Williams found time to get in some quality miles and sightseeing along the way.

As an aspiring elite junior, Williams paid his dues racing in Europe, but this time his focus was on enjoying the journey and seeking inspiration. Here, featuring his own words and photos from his rides, is a personal look at his freewheeling Austrian adventure.

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Courtesy of Justin Williams & Friends

PRO CYCLIST JUSTIN WILLIAMS ENJOYED SEVERAL PEACEFUL SPINS IN AND AROUND SALZBURG.

BIKE Postcard from a Pro

“I ron i c a l l y , i t f el t l i k e th e p e rf ec t se tti n g to g e t i n to th e m n i d se t to th i n k a b o u t h o w we c o u l d ev o l ve a n d tra n sf o rm A m e ri c a n b i k e ra c i n g. ” 100

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Courtesy of Justin Williams & Friends

“Th e a b i l i ty to l tra vel i s w h yI f el i n l ove w i th c y c l i n g. Th e b i okme , c a n b ri n g f ree d e sp ec i a l l y i f sh a re d w i th p a s si on a te p e o p l e w i th d i f f e re n t sto ri e s. ”

“I d i d a l o t of c l i m b i n g ove r th e re. I l ove c l i m b i n g a t m y o w n p a c e—I sti l l g e t th a t f eel i n g of a c c o m p l i sh m e n t. A n d on th e b i g g e st c l i m b , we g o t a n i c e sp ri n t i n a t th e to p . So I w a s i n h e a ve n. ” THE RED BULLETIN

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BIKE The Conversation

Fabio Wibmer, who calls his riding “pure fun,” was photographed in Los Angeles on May 22 and 23.

9 QUESTIONS

1 What trick are you going to do in this film?

The plan is basically to jump backwards off a van and do a 270-degree turn as a rider passes beneath me, so it will be tricky to get the edge perfectly. And it will be after dark with lights shining on me, which doesn’t exactly make it easier because the lights can be a little blinding. But I’m looking forward to it.

2 Can you express your reaction to being a part of a bike-related film led by LeBron James?

Yeah, it’s crazy—I got to meet him yesterday. It’s overwhelming to be a part of. Everyone knows him; he’s like the biggest sports person.

Being in an edit with him is something I never would have thought could happen. I’m really happy to see him on a bike, promoting biking and spreading that spirit. That’s something that I also try to spread in my videos, to get more people to bike.

JUMPING AT THE OPPORTUNITY

Trials icon Fabio Wibmer flew to L.A. to nail a trick for LeBron James’s new film on bike culture. Here he discusses his role in the film—and his efforts to inspire people who don’t even ride.

Fabio Wibmer is one of the hottest trials riders on Earth. The 29-year-old Austrian has built a massive following—with more than 10 million followers on Instagram and YouTube alone—for his wildly creative videos, which highlight both his playful side and seemingly limitless technical prowess. The Red Bulletin caught up with Wibmer in late May on a quiet residential street in Los Angeles as he prepped to film a trick for a short film organized by basketball legend LeBron James to celebrate his own love of riding. That film, Find Your Freedom, debuted on July 15, during the Tour de France. Wibmer was kind enough to clamber down from the roof of a cargo van to answer nine questions about the film, as well as his ambitions to transcend his discipline and have broader cultural relevance.

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Canyon

PETER FLAX

3 You have broader appeal than most trials riders. Are you intentionally trying to reach people beyond the core?

For sure. That’s how I got inspired.

I watched a video from Danny MacAskill back in the day, and the way that he made it was so different than normal mountain-bike videos— the kind of thing that could inspire people who have nothing to do with the sport. That inspired me to start riding bikes. And since then I’ve developed my own style of riding and learned how I can express myself with content.

4 How would you describe your style?

My style reflects how I’ve evolved as a rider and how I see the world.

When I walk through a city, I see a fence like everyone else, but I try to see it in a different way. Also, my style is versatile, a mixture of very technical trials riding and doing big jumps on a downhill bike. I’m always trying to combine those two things.

5 It always looks like you’re having a blast. Is that the case?

Yeah, that’s why I started it—and why I’m still doing it. It’s pure fun. I go out on a bike and there are literally no boundaries. I don’t do competitions, so there are no rules. So I can do whatever I want and it never gets boring.

6 How do you feel about L.A.?

I’m amazed that after flying 13 hours to get here how many people I meet who follow me and tell me I inspired them to ride bikes. That is pretty incredible! And there are amazing spots here. Filming something big here has been in my mind for a long time and I really want to make that happen. And yesterday, when we were driving around, I couldn’t believe how many spots I recognized from playing GTA V.

7 Are you hoping to transcend your discipline—to have broader appeal beyond trials riding?

Yes, totally. That’s what makes some athletes the biggest athletes in the world. They are bringing their sport to a broader audience by being more than their sport. And that’s what I want to achieve. Not just speaking to bikers, the core audience, but being a person who is inspiring people who are not even riding bikes. Sometimes in a video I show how I train a trick 500 times and crash 300 times—and then there is one try when it works.

Hopefully I can inspire people with whatever they want to do through trial and error.

8 I’m curious about your relationship with Canyon.

Do they make a trials bike just for you?

That was the case when we started.

I started developing a bike with Canyon about four years ago. We then set out to make a carbon trials bike, which actually is quite tricky.

Because a trials bike is not a normal bike—it needs to absorb really hard impacts, and you’ve got different

tensions on it because you go forwards and backwards on it.

They’ve always been super stoked to make this project happen. And then about two years ago they actually put it on the market so consumers can buy it. It’s really cool to see a big brand like Canyon stepping into the trials scene.

9 Talk to me about your apparel line—how you got into it and the intersection of style and performance.

I’m interested in a lot of things. I’m definitely into clothing and apparel.

Me and my good friend, Hannes, who takes all of my photos, have been thinking for a while about a brand that mixes street style with biking gear. Like how some brands have brought skating style into the mainstream. And that’s part of what we are tying to do with Nineyard. You can wear it on the bike but you also can wear it every day. We want to see people out on the streets with what looks like bike gear, whether they’re riding or not. And that’s one more way I can speak to a broader audience, to help spread that lifestyle to the mainstream.

Wibmer gets ready to launch his stunt as the cameras roll for James’s film.

2024 ISSUE 3

THE RED BULLETIN QUARTERLY

itness + sports + fitness

+ sports + fitness + spo

sports + fitness + sports

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MiLaysia Fulwiley

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Arike Ogunbowale

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Train Like a Pro

122 Gear

s+

orts +

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María José Govea

orts +

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THE SKY IS THE LIMIT

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MILAYSIA FULWILEY

WORDS BY TAMRYN SPRUILL

PHOTOS BY KOURY ANGELO

MiLaysia Fulwiley may be flashy on the hardwood, but this generational talent is no flash in the pan.

Getty Images

SPORTS + FITNESS

MILAYSIA FULWILEY

The South Carolina Gamecocks

Fulwiley put on an offensive show during the SEC championship game this past March, leading the South Carolina Gamecocks over LSU and earning the tournament MVP trophy along the way.

clung to a onepoint lead over defending national champion Louisiana State in a huge game this past March. En route to this Southeastern Conference (SEC) Tournament title game, the Gamecocks had defeated every opponent they faced during the 2023-24 NCAA regular season, while the national media spotlight on women’s college basketball shone elsewhere. LSU’s Lady Tigers, for their part, had spent the season battling opposing teams as well as uncomfortable attacks from sports media and fans.

Both teams craved the validation an SEC title would provide, and emotions flared. With a little more than two minutes left in the fourth quarter, MiLaysia Fulwiley stole the ball from LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson on the dribble and dashed toward halfcourt. But at the edge of the SEC logo, Johnson committed an intentional foul to thwart her path to a fast-break layup on the other end.

Fulwiley did not slow easily. At center court, Johnson tagged her harder, nearly causing the freshman standout to stumble.

But with strength she attributes to the help of Gamecocks sports performance coach Molly Binetti, Fulwiley stayed on her feet, protected the ball and decelerated toward the sideline, where she was greeted by the South Carolina bench and coaching staff on their feet.

Meanwhile, as her teammates moved in on the player who had bodied their young guard, words—and shoves—were exchanged.

Johnson was knocked to the floor by Kamilla Cardoso, the Gamecocks’ star center and eventual No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft. Cardoso was ejected, along with three other Gamecocks and two LSU players who left the bench in the melee.

But the LSU player who had shoved Fulwiley to begin the fracas remained in the game.

Someone had to step up. To avenge what felt like an unfair ruling by the game officials, Fulwiley let her game do the talking and snagged another steal off of LSU’s Johnson. She kept her focus on nailing down the win. Her teammates who were tossed from the game for defending her would not get to celebrate on the court, but they did become SEC champions after a 79-72 win.

In 16:40 of time on the floor, Fulwiley poured in 24 points, dished two assists and recorded two steals. Her offensive haul included four-of-four free throws, four-of-five shooting from 3-point range and a 66.7 percent field goal percentage. After putting on a master class in efficiency, the teenager was rewarded with the SEC Tournament MVP trophy.

Fulwiley was the first freshman in South Carolina women’s basketball history to take home that hardware. It was a glorious moment for a young athlete whose athletic journey began at a neighborhood park in Columbia, South Carolina, across town from the Gamecocks’ Colonial Life Arena home court. But it was a moment that had been in the making for years.

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”I put a lot of work into my body to be able to finish [my] moves,” says Fulwiley, who was photographed for The Red Bulletin on May 6 in Santa Monica, California.

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“It started really by just hooping at the park,” Fulwiley says.

Fueled by the satisfaction of seeing the ball swish through the net, her hobby morphed into a full-blown obsession. Ignited by a sense of creativity and wonder, she devised ever more clever ways to drop the ball into the net.

Women’s basketball aficionados now draw comparisons between Fulwiley’s electrifying moves and the tricky dishes of Dawn Staley, a 2013 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, pioneer of the WNBA (and the American Basketball League, the bygone women’s pro league) and now head coach of the South Carolina women’s team. But Fulwiley was too young to have witnessed Staley—the OG of swaggy floor generals—dish no-look, behind-the-back passes at the 1996 Olympics, lead the ABL’s Philadelphia Rage or ball out for the WNBA’s defunct Charlotte Sting. During Fulwiley’s formative years, the games in the fledgling WNBA aired infrequently on TV. So, like many tweens and teens, Fulwiley turned to YouTube.

She consumed compilations of basketball skill-building and trick shots. Many of the athletes she watched were unknown—kids performing crazy stunts with aspirations of going viral. These videos helped Fulwiley develop sequences and moves from one end of the court to the other. At 12, her virtuosic talent began opening doors. First, Fulwiley made the leap up to the varsity girls’ basketball team at nearby Keenan High School. Before long, after Staley began to take notice of the phenom, South Carolina offered her a full scholarship to play for the Gamecocks.

Because she started playing in middle school, she was able to lead Keenan to four state titles in her six seasons with the Raiders and fielded many more college offers. In her senior year of high school, Fulwiley narrowed her list to five programs in the southeastern United States, most in the SEC. Her announcement to commit to South Carolina came as no surprise. “I wanted to be a part of greatness,” Fulwiley says during an interview with The Red Bulletin this past May. For the occasion, the 5’10” guard—who signed pioneering NCAA name, image and likeness (NIL) deals with Red Bull, Under Armour, Curry Brand and a restaurant chain called Mr. Seafood—wears a dark jacket, her dreadlocks concealing some of the collar, with weighty gold jewelry around her neck and wrists. “I’m from there and it made more sense to go there,” she adds. “South Carolina is the No. 1 team in the country and I live here. It just wouldn’t make any sense to go to another school.”

Staley was a mutual admirer. After the coach witnessed Fulwiley’s advancement through middle and high school, she was convinced that Fulwiley was a generational talent, possessing rare natural ability and physical traits that enable excellence. Like ballerina Misty Copeland—whose first ballet class at age 13 was on a basketball court at a Boys & Girls Club—Staley and Fulwiley possess a unique mix of athleticism and artistry. “There aren’t very many females or males able to do what she does,” Staley told the Greenville News. “She just has a really good knack for the game.

It comes to her quite naturally, and we’re so happy that she’s a Gamecock, and she can give us some of those exciting moments.”

Fulwiley’s gifts were on full display as her high school career wound down. In a 2023 game versus the Eau Claire Shamrocks, for instance, she did not just dunk; she took the ball to the rim with uncommon finesse. When a fast-break run left her alone in the open court, Fulwiley approached the basket, slammed the ball onto the hardwood with the exact force needed for it to bounce to the height of the rim, elevated and tapped it through the hoop.

It was not just a basketball play; it was an elite performance of timing and improvisation. It was Copeland’s hands elaborating the story; clarinetist Doreen Ketchens taking the scenic route to

MILAYSIA FULWILEY

the end of “When the Saints Go Marching In”; Simone Biles, shins down on the mat, rolling her toes into a standing position. But like all prodigies, Fulwiley needed to hone her talents. She carried the scoring load in high school; the court was a canvas on which she could experiment at will. In the far more competitive NCAA, she had to mature into knowing when it was time to go wild.

In her first collegiate game, last November, Fulwiley put on a show. South Carolina and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish became the first women’s teams in NCAA history to compete in Paris.

The thousands of Parisians who filled Georges Carpentier Arena and a far larger audience that tuned into the broadcast on ESPN saw Fulwiley’s catlike sneak attack, as she poked the ball from her opponent’s hand. With lightning-quick speed, she advanced up the court, alternating dribbles between left hand and right.

Defenders closed in as Fulwiley powered into the paint. She had come too far to let Notre Dame’s defense even think about blocking her shot. Fulwiley passed the ball to herself in a behind-the-back showstopper. The move confused those defending her. Fulwiley was free to complete a perfect layup on the move.

“South Carolina is the No. 1 team in the country and I live here.

It wouldn’t make sense to go to another school.”

SPORTS + FITNESS

The entire brilliant play lasted five seconds.

In that moment, watching on television, I said aloud: “That is the Full Fulwiley.” So in our interview, I ask the rising sophomore if she knows which play of hers I had nicknamed.

“It’s probably a layup,” Fulwiley laughs. “Was it a layup?”

Any of her speedy floaters could be a Fulwiley, but the Full Fulwiley starts with a steal or a rebound and ends with fast-break points scored via a slick move below the rim.

Basketball legends took notice. “I just saw the best move in all of basketball, including the pros like LeBron [James], Steph [Curry], KD [Kevin Durant], Victor [Wembanyama] and [Nikola] Jokic,” Magic Johson, the five-time NBA champion and Hall of Famer, renowned for his creativity on the court, wrote on Twitter. “Everyone must see the coast-tocoast, behind-the-back move . . . WOW!!”

Durant, meanwhile, tweeted that Fulwiley and Hannah Hidalgo of Notre Dame, also a freshman guard, were “moving DIFFERENT.” It was high praise coming from such basketball legends. The attention made Fulwiley an overnight sensation.

But despite her fast collegiate start, obstacles remained. During a game against North Carolina at the end of November, Staley benched Fulwiley.

Staley later told a reporter that she thought the experience would “pay dividends” for her young star to watch and learn. The Gamecocks got a 65-58 win; Fulwiley got a dose of humility. “If you play well, you get extended minutes. If you don’t, that has to go to somebody else,” Staley said.

It was a wake-up call that Fulwiley heard loud and clear. She recommitted to checking her ego at the door—and playing defense. “I wanna be on the court, so I just decided to do whatever I had to do to stay on the court, which was defend at a high level,” she says. “I knew I was capable of it. I kind of chilled on defense [before].”

She also began navigating outsiders’ expectations. “A lot of fans expect me to do crazy things, even if I’m only playing four minutes a quarter,” she says. “It could be overwhelming if I’m not making every shot, so I just tried to grow and stay locked in mentally.”

To stay in a balanced mindset, she has used some creative means. Sometimes she literally lets her hair down to “put some superpowers in me or something,” such as in the early rounds of

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the NCAA tournament. With each win, the Gamecocks moved closer to the national spotlight, but Fulwiley was distracted.

“I was thinking too much about everything, and everybody wanted me to play so good,” she says. “I just wanted to feel like my old high school self.” But she and the Gamecocks had a national title to win. Letting her hair down did not refresh her mindset; Fulwiley returned to a pulled-back style for the rest of the season, as South Carolina played their way deeper into the tournament.

The only undefeated team in the 2023-24 NCAA season, men’s or women’s, made it to the championship game. To take home the title, the Gamecocks would have to go through Caitlin Clark— owner of every scoring record in NCAA history (men’s and women’s) and major media darling—and the Iowa Hawkeyes. The battle between the NCAA’s most prolific scorer and an unbeaten team unfolded in front of 18,300 spectators at a sold-out Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland. An average of 18.7 million households tuned in, the biggest TV audience for any basketball game—men’s, women’s, professional or collegiate—in years.

MILAYSIA FULWILEY

“My game is gifted and I just keep putting in the work,” says Fulwiley, who begins her sophomore season this fall. “I think I’m very different, and that part of me is never gonna change.”

Despite the public fascination with Clark, the best team won.

Diana Taurasi, the 2004 WNBA No. 1 draft pick and leading scorer in the league’s history, said during a Final Four program that the Gamecocks were pro-ready. “Now they look like a WNBA team to me,” she said, suggesting that basketball IQ, patience and prioritizing team goals over personal glory are keys to success.

Only Fulwiley and her teammates know what they overcame individually and collectively to reach the pinnacle of college basketball. For starters, these young women are students as well as athletes. Fulwiley is pursuing a bachelor of science in retailing and admits that her course load has at times felt overwhelming.

To ensure her standing with the university and her team, she became “very vocal” about any difficulties—usually contacting assistant coach Jolette Law for support and connection to an academic coach.

Then there are the rigors of being a top Division I athlete. “I don’t just wake up and do those moves,” Fulwiley says. “I put a lot of work into my body to be able to finish the moves. When I steal the ball like that, go down the court and make those layups,

it makes me feel like all my hard work is paying off. We put a lot of work in every day— not just on the court, but also with Molly [Binetti], making sure my legs are strong, my arms are strong.” The Full Fulwiley isn’t just the fancy defense-to-offense conversion that leaves viewers agape; it is also the behindthe-scenes labor.

“The Full Fulwiley is definitely a great nickname for that,” she laughs.

Part of Fulwiley’s work is keeping likeminded, goal-oriented people around her.

“You have to be disciplined enough to understand what’s for you and what isn’t for you—who is for you, who isn’t for you,” she says. “I do what I’m supposed to do off the court . . . because you can easily get off track or people can try to make you [go] off track.”

With resources matching her sizable talent, the pressure to succeed has increased.

Basketball “became something that I need in life, and it can help me make a better life for my family—my mom and two sisters and just for myself in general,” Fulwiley says. “My game is gifted and I just keep putting in the work. I think I’m very different, and that part of me is never gonna change.”

JaMeesia Ford, a track-and-field athlete at South Carolina, has been a grounding force in Fulwiley’s life.

When I mention Ford, the sharpshooter glances at the floor, fidgeting. At the year-ending Gamecock Gala, Fulwiley wore a dark Hermès suit and red bow tie, while Ford was at her side in a long black flapper-style dress. Fulwiley confirms Ford is her girlfriend; it is fitting that the pair left the gala with co-Female Freshman of the Year awards in hand.

Given Fulwiley’s roadrunner-like speed, I was curious to know if she could beat Ford in a footrace. Fulwiley smiles at the question. “I raced her a couple times in the halls and I realized that I couldn’t easily be a track star,” Fulwiley says. “She’s really fast, so I don’t expect to beat her. She, like, beat me really bad.”

Footraces in hallways are grounding fun. Basketball is also joyous for Fulwiley, and she wants to keep it that way. The bigger picture of helping South Carolina to its third national title in seven seasons, though, is not lost on the spry and crafty star.

“What we’re doing [helps] women’s basketball—all our supporters, especially all the little kids out there watching,” she says. “Our fans and our fams.”

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SPORTS + FITNESS In the Moment

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“Being here, being blessed, playing the game I love.” Those are the words of Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale (above, far left) after she was crowned MVP of the 2024 WNBA All-Star Game, leading Team WNBA to victory against Team USA. In front of a sold-out crowd at the Footprint Center in Phoenix in July, Ogunbowale set a record for most points ever scored in a WNBA All-Star Game—34, all in the second half. “Coach told me to take a deep breath and go out there and play my game,” she told commentators while holding her trophy.

“And that’s what I did,” she added with a huge grin and a light chuckle.

“Being here, being blessed, playing the game I love.”

ULTIMATE ALL-STAR

SPORTS + FITNESS

IAN WALSH

TRAIN LIKE A PRO Veteran big-wave surfer Ian Walsh has stayed at the top of his high-stakes game for decades by training with serious intention.

WORDS BY JEN SEE PHOTOS BY MARÍA JOSÉ GOVEA

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Ian Walsh

Surfing

“I plan to surf my whole life,” says Walsh, who was photographed at the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center Los Angeles on July 19.

The hard-charging and peripatetic big-wave specialist, who turned pro more than two decades ago, has made his name dropping into the biggest and most consequential waves on Earth.

One afternoon when he was around 16 years old, Ian Walsh left a note for his parents on the front door.

Going surfing, it said. But this

wasn’t just any afternoon session. His neighbor Luke Hargreaves was headed to Jaws and invited Walsh to come along. Growing up on Maui’s north side, Walsh had long wondered what made the fearsome big-wave break so special.

That day he found out. The power and speed the wave offered hooked him from the very first ride. “That’s really where the problem started,” he says, with characteristic humor.

Now 41, Walsh has devoted his life to the pursuit of the world’s biggest and most dangerous waves. It takes a unique combination of physical and mental strength to navigate a big-wave lineup and ride the giants at a spot like Jaws.

“If there’s an approaching set, and it looks like a five- or six-story building is marching at you, your natural instinct is going to be to paddle further out, so you’re not near it when it breaks,” says Walsh. But for Walsh to catch a wave that big, he must face his fears, stay in position, and explode into motion at just the right moment.

A big-wave session might last five hours or more, and Walsh never knows when the wave of the day might come to him. Steady paddling against the strong currents that big swells generate requires endurance. “It’s a big day, and you need a big engine,” says Walsh. “I might only get one wave and it might take six hours to do so.” When that wave comes, Walsh needs a massive burst of speed to propel himself into it. “The most important part of surfing is paddling,” he says. But riding the wave isn’t easy. Walsh must absorb the compression from a 40- or 50-foot, high-speed drop with his legs.

As he makes split-second decisions in the lineup, Walsh relies on years of experience reading the ocean. “In that situation, I’m 100 percent focused on what’s right in front of me,” he says. In the past, Walsh has found it difficult to simulate the emotions and concentration of a big-wave session, but recently, he’s made it a priority to improve the mental side of his preparation. Before he surfs, he writes down a few goals for the day. “What I’d like to practice going into next season is taking a bit of time to visualize,” he says. “Those monumental days are so infrequent and when they come, I want to get a wave that’s really special to me.”

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FINDING BALANCE

Single-leg movements in the gym help Walsh correct the imbalances surfing creates. “When you surf for a long time, everything is one-sided,” he says. “I like to do a single-leg squat to 90 degrees, where I sit on a bench and come up on both legs,” he says. He also uses a leg-press machine to match the movements with each leg as closely as possible. “It’s less about a max power workout than it is about isolating and strengthening those areas.”

IAN WALSH

PEDALING FOR ENDURANCE

To build cardio fitness, Walsh has turned to cycling as a lower-impact alternative to running. “Every time I ran, I felt like an inflamed elephant and everything hurt,” he says. During his off-season from big-wave surfing, Walsh rides two to three times weekly and mixes Zone 2 endurance rides with interval training to prepare for highintensity efforts. During the winter, Walsh also rides to warm up before paddling out and to recover after a big day in the water.

BUILDING PADDLE POWER

For paddle strength, Walsh works his lats and triceps in the gym. “It’s about finding exercises that can lengthen the muscles and help them be explosive,” he says. “I do medicine ball exercises that simulate the motion of reaching and gliding through the water and an explosive movement.” Pullups and lat pulls are a staple. Slowing down the eccentric, or lowering motion, of the pull-up helps Walsh lengthen his muscles.

Walsh uses a foam roller on his lats, too.

In his summer build-up, Walsh is focused on increasing his paddling power, correcting muscle imbalances and opening up chronic joint tightness. “I have the hips of a dying Labrador,” he jokes.

SPORTS + FITNESS

FUEL FOR THE BIGGEST DAYS

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Walsh prepares meticulously to fuel a six-hour big-wave session. As he organizes his gear and makes travel arrangements in the days ahead of a swell, he tries to get as many calories into his body as he can. Hydration is also key. “Once I get in the water, there’s so much happening, it’s really easy for a whole day to go by and realize I haven’t eaten or drank anything,” he says. Between waves, he tries to grab a quick drink to stay hydrated.

A skilled chef, Walsh can prepare a dizzying array of meals, but his pre-swell choice is

simple and hearty. “During the monumental 2015-2016 season, every single meal we had the night before a big swell just seemed to be spaghetti and meatballs,” he says. Unwilling to mess with a good thing, Walsh has stuck with the pre-swell pasta. “Even now, when I have spaghetti and meatballs, I start to get nervous and excited. It’s like my body knows I’m going to scare myself the next morning.”

To celebrate a good run of swell, he makes gourmet pizzas that he bakes to perfection in a wood-fired oven.

IAN WALSH

SPORTS + FITNESS Gear

EXERCISE IN STYLE

These four powerful devices will help you get in top shape without the typical high-tech aesthetic.

PETER FLAX

Beats Fit Pro If you’re jumping or sprinting, you want wireless headphones that can handle the workout.

With a wingtip design that slots inside your ear and swappable eartips in three sizes, the Fit Pro will remain secure. The audio quality is good for earbuds, with strong bass and solid active noise cancellation. They’re Android-compatible but offer more pairing options and hands-free use with Apple devices. They deliver six hours of listening time with ANC turned on.

BEATS FIT PRO

$200; BEATSBYDRE.COM

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FITNESS TECH

Theragun Sense Unlike heavier massage guns designed to jackhammer knots out of your muscles, this smaller device offers preprogrammed routines to assist with stress relief, sleep quality, breathwork and workout recovery. Quiet and weighing only 1.6 lbs, the Bluetooth-enabled Sense is easy to throw in a gym bag or use at your desk and includes four attachments plus a biometric sensor that tracks your heart rate. It’s easy to upload additional routines—yoga recovery, anyone?— from the Therabody app.

The Theragun Sense can deliver percussive massage therapy, but this compact machine also offers a suite of relaxation tools.

THERAGUN SENSE $220; THERABODY.COM

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SPORTS + FITNESS Gear

If you want a fitness tracker that has an elegant vibe, the Withings Scanwatch Light is a surprisingly capable hybrid.

Withings Scanwatch Light If you want a capable fitness tracker without a tech-heavy aesthetic, then this classic smartwatch hybrid is worth a look. Don’t let the handsome analog face fool you; the Scanwatch Light has an OLED display that lets you toggle through heart-rate data, sleep analysis and advanced activity tracking.

It easily syncs with Withings’ free app if you want to study historical data or set up custom fitness challenges.

Available in five color combinations.

WITHINGS SCANWATCH LIGHT $250; WITHINGS.COM

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FITNESS TECH

Far more powerful than meditation apps, Moonbird gives you tactile input to help you integrate mindful breathing into your daily routine.

Moonbird Breathing Coach Mindful breathing is linked to lower stress, improved sleep and reduced anxiety, and this sleek handheld device is like a personalized coach to help you integrate snackable breathwork sessions into your day. You can pair it with the Moonbird app if you want to see real-time biofeedback, study your progress or set up custom exercises, but you can use it in screen-free mode and simply mimic the guided pattern as the device expands and deflates on its own. Available in four colors.

MOONBIRD BREATHING COACH $200; MOONBIRD.LIFE

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ENERGY BOOST

FEEL THE BURN Craving something spicy sweet and low-calorie? Then treat yourself to this nonalcoholic cocktail featuring the new Red Bull Amber Edition Sugarfree.

While brainstorming a recipe for the new Red Bull Amber Edition Sugarfree, mixologist Saeed House experimented with different ways to highlight the energy drink’s Strawberry Apricot flavor. Surprisingly, he discovered that the combination of serrano peppers

and peach nectar brought out the notes of apricot. Along with lemon juice and monk fruit syrup, the recipe also adds a delicious savory element thanks to a glass rimmed with Tajín, a Mexican spice blend that includes lime, chili peppers and salt.

RECIPE SPICY APRICOT SMASH

Ingredients: 2 serrano pepper slices (to taste) 2 oz. peach nectar 1 ¼ oz. monk fruit syrup (2 parts water, 1 part monk fruit sweetener) ¾ oz. lemon juice 2 oz. Red Bull Amber Edition Sugarfree Garnish: Tajín rim and lemon wheel

Lew Robertson, Saeed House

Directions: Place serrano pepper slices into a cocktail shaker and muddle. Add peach nectar, monk fruit syrup, lemon juice and ice. Shake and pour into a rocks glass rimmed with lemon juice and Tajín seasoning. Top with Red Bull Amber Edition Sugarfree. Garnish with a lemon wheel.

Saeed “Hawk” House, also known as Cocktails By Hawk on TikTok and Instagram, is a content creator, recipe developer and bartender based in Los Angeles who personally loves a drink that’s “light, bright and not too complex.”

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Ready to make it yourself?

Scan here to learn more about Red Bull Amber Edition Sugarfree.

alphatauri.com Red Bull athlete Šime Fantela, sailor, wears the new water-resistant, windproof, and breathable bonded wool caban jacket ORATA from AlphaTauri – functional fashion by Red Bull.

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FINAL TAKE

Seconds after launching a comically large skateboard off a 27-foot deck and into the drink in Cincinnati, Ohio, last August, pilot Nigel Jones was soaked, but his spirit to own the moment was undampened.

Such verve is the point of the 32-yearold event known as Red Bull Flugtag, a lighthearted competition of flying contraptions (that usually can’t fly).

Although the team, representing Braille Skateboarding from Oakland, California, didn’t exactly fulfill its dream to perform a cinematic ollie, they did wind up with an official leap of 39 feet, high scores from the judges and much love from the huge crowd.

“That was so fun. I wish I could do that again,” laughed Jones. The same kind of intentionally goofy good times will unfold on November 9 in Tampa, Florida— where an anticipated audience of 100,000 fun seekers (and far more online) will watch dozens of flight crews seek immortality in a futile effort to defy gravity.

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Ryan Taylor/Red Bull Content Pool

“My palms are sweaty, knees weak, my arms are heavy—OK, let’s go skate now.”

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