The Red Bulletin US 11/21

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

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BEYOND THE ORDINARY EarthGang’s WowGr8 (left) and Olu founded the now prolific Spillage Village collective in 2010.

COLLECTIVE GENIUS How EARTHGANG and JID have come together to take Atlanta hip-hop to an even higher level

THE RED BULLETIN 11/2021

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BEYOND THE ORDINARY

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BEYOND THE ORDINARY

Rapper and songwriter JID was the first artist to join the Spillage Village collective.

COLLECTIVE GENIUS How JID and EarthGang have come together to take Atlanta hip-hop to an even higher level

THE RED BULLETIN 11/2021

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EDITOR’S NOTE

HIP-HOP TRUTHS Hip-hop will always resist efforts to typecast the culture in simple terms. There’s too much nuance and history; it’s a living, breathing entity. Consider our cover story— “Collective Genius” (page 22) —a profile of the artists JID and EarthGang. These performers defy the general public’s perceptions of Atlanta hip-hop, as if the world’s most prolific hotbed of hip-hop talent could possibly be defined by trap or certain manners of style. The culture is plenty big enough to embrace such talent and texture.

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE

MAURICE GARLAND

The Atlanta-based writer, whose work has been published by NPR, Complex and Hip Hop Wired, calls his profile of EarthGang and JID “a full circle reunion.” Garland says he’s followed the artists “since they first started doing shows at small venues in Atlanta (some of which I hosted). And I even wrote about them on my personal blog in the early days of their careers. So it was great to reconnect with everyone.” Page 22

Cam Kirk shot EarthGang in his Atlanta studio on August 2.

Likewise, pigeonholing hip-hop as a musical genre excludes dance’s central role in the culture. In that vein, the portfolio “Breaking Ground” celebrates Martha Cooper’s iconic work documenting the rise of breaking.

And “Breaking Free” (page 35) profiles Logan “Logistx” Edra, a world-class dancer and outspoken advocate for mental health. This duality embodies the depth of hiphop culture, as rich and textured as life itself.

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For nine years, the photographer has shot the hottest emerging hip-hop talent in his home base of Atlanta. “I’ve had the honor and privilege to work with JID and EarthGang throughout their journeys, but this time for The Red Bulletin just feels surreal,” says Kirk, whose work has appeared in Fader, Complex, Pitchfork and XXL. “This cover couldn’t feel more right than with these Atlanta hometown heroes.” Page 22

THE RED BULLETIN

CAM KIRK(COVER)

CAM KIRK

CONTENTS November

FEATURES

2 2 Collective Genius

In a city that’s already transformed hip-hop, EarthGang and JID have a statement to make about the soul of Atlanta.

3 5 Breaking Free

Logan “Logistx” Edra is already a world-class dancer, but she’s also part of a growing movement of elite performers speaking out about the importance of mental health.

4 8 What Flies Beneath

How pilot Dario Costa achieved one of the boldest feats in aeronautical history—the world’s longest underground flight.

5 8 Across the Board

Engineer Maggie Leon is inventing new snowboard prototypes for adaptive athletes, making the sport more accessible for all.

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SONS OF ATLANTA

JID (left) and EarthGang are old friends who together formed the Spillage Village collective.

35 GRIT AND GRACE At 18, Logistx is already a rare talent in the breaking scene.

She returns to the Red Bull BC One World Finals on November 6.

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THE RED BULLETIN

THE

DEPARTURE

Taking You to New Heights

9 Guardian Angel: NBA star Donte DiVincenzo 12 R&B queen Tinashe takes

charge of her career

14 Stellar MTB in Utah 16 Naptime in Yosemite 18 Multitasking in Patagonia 20 Danny Elfman shares his

favorite scary soundtracks

GUIDE

Get it. Do it. See it.

65 Black-owned breweries coming soon near you 68 Fitness tips from cyclocross pro Ellen Noble 70 Dates for your calendar 72 The best new audio gear 78 Anatomy of a luxe amp 82 Breaking loose in Brooklyn

SPECIAL FEATURE

CAM KIRK, YSA PEREZ, MARTHA COOPER

Photographer Martha Cooper documented the emergence of breaking and brought it a global audience.

THE RED BULLETIN

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LIFE

&

STYLE

BEYOND

THE

ORDINARY

THE

NOLIS ANDERSON/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

GUARDIAN ANGEL As a starting guard for the world-champion Milwaukee Bucks, Donte DiVincenzo is a savage on the court, but off it, he’s a defender of four-legged friends.

DiVincenzo, 24, has won two state high school titles, two NCAA titles and now an NBA championship.

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H

ere’s how you can tell Donte DiVincenzo is a cold-blooded killer on the basketball court: Look at the hardware. By the age of 21, the Delaware native had already racked up two NCAA titles at Villanova as well as two state high school championships. Then this past summer he reached the pinnacle of his sport, winning a title as a starting guard on the Milwaukee Bucks in just his third season in the NBA. You don’t do that in a sport

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like basketball without being an assassin—in his case, more specifically, a hardhustling gym rat with an uncanny knack for rising to meet big moments with impeccable timing.

Here’s how you know DiVincenzo is, at the same time, a gigantic softie: Witness his kidlike fondness for rescue dogs, and his gamechanging advocacy work on their behalf. His love for animals goes back to when, as an elementary school kid,

he visited an American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals shelter in Newark, Delaware, with his father. There he laid eyes for the first time on King, a Great Dane–pit bull mix that weighed north of 100 pounds.

That night at home, DiVincenzo relentlessly lobbied his parents to adopt King. “My mom was like, ‘He’s only a couple of pounds lighter than me, so no way,’ ” he recalls with a laugh. “He was a big boy, but he ended THE RED BULLETIN

NOLIS ANDERSON/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, COURTESY OF DONTE DIVINCENZO

Since his Villanova days, DiVincenzo has been called the Big Ragu for his red hair and Italian heritage.

T H E D E PA RT U R E

up being the best dog we had as a family. He was a gentle giant. He was the first dog that got me into the rescue process and wanting to learn more about it.”

He and King formed a tight bond. And when he arrived in Milwaukee after being chosen by the Bucks in the first round of the 2018 draft, the Big Ragu (a nickname that arose from his Italian heritage and red hair) headed to the Milwaukee campus of the Wisconsin Humane Society, thinking he might adopt another rescue dog. The videos and pictures DiVincenzo posted to social media of him interacting with some of the homeless would-be pets created a minor sensation.

“Literally like the next morning, all those dogs were adopted,” he says. “It was super cool to realize how many people you can connect with.”

That brought an epiphany: He understood that he could help others form connections like the one he’d experienced with King. “Once you see this cute, loving dog and you go and meet him and then you see it works in your family, there’s no hesitation,” he says.

“So using that social media platform was huge for us.”

From there, his support for rescue dogs morphed into other concepts. This past season, he worked with the Humane Society on various fundraisers aimed at increasing capacity for animals at the Milwaukee shelter. In one initiative, everyone who donated $10 was entered into a chance to win Bucks tickets and a hangout session with DiVincenzo afterward.

“That was super cool,” he says, “because I got to meet a bunch of different people that were one, fans of the Bucks, and two, had the same passion that I have for animals.”

He hopes to create an after-school program that incentivizes kids to get good grades in exchange for the chance to play with rescue dogs and learn to interact with them. He’s spitballing with former Villanova teammates Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges— who are also passionate about animal-rescue causes—about joining forces, along with their respective NBA teams, on a Humane Society benefit. And DiVincenzo’s ultimate dream is to one day open his own foundation in his home state of Delaware, where rescue dogs can be moved from the confined spaces that often characterize animal shelters into more spacious, comfortable quarters.

In the meantime, he’s gradually making progress toward finishing a degree from Villanova in communications and psychology, fulfilling a promise he made to his mother. As of this past summer, he had only five classes to go. And he and his girlfriend are constantly reminded of the joys of pet ownership by their rescue dog, Shorty, a dachshund-pug mix.

When they returned from vacation recently, DiVincenzo says, grinning wide, “my girlfriend walks in and he freaks out, and I walk in and he freaks out again. Then we both sit in the hallway, like about 8 feet apart, and he had no idea who to run to. He ran

DIVINCENZO HAS A KNACK FOR RISING TO MEET BIG MOMENTS. THE RED BULLETIN

to me and jumped on me, then kicked off my chest and ran to her.” It was one more reminder, he says, of “that connection that you can have with a dog—you basically saved his life, and he’s making your life better.”

Shorty helped him cope with the challenges of being injured this past summer.

DiVincenzo tore a ligament in his left ankle during the first round of the NBA playoffs and had surgery in June. After rehabilitating the ankle, he’ll head into his fourth season with the worldchampion Bucks, where he’ll look to elevate his role as a shutdown defender, stellar playmaker and elite rebounder—a Swiss army knife of a guard. “I had a couple of guys reach out to me and just kind of reiterate what I brought to the team when I went down,” DiVincenzo says. “And that was a really good feeling.”

Expect more good feelings to come, both on the court and for rescue dogs in Milwaukee and beyond. —Dave Howard

After injuring his ankle during the NBA playoffs, DiVincenzo coped with being off the court with the help of his dog, Shorty.

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T H E D E PA RT U R E

Tinashe

vision, or at least that supported my vision, so we could grow together—from management and publicity to hair and makeup. I just wanted new inspiration. It helped me transition into a new era with fresh energy and plenty of positivity.

T

inashe Jorgensen Kachingwe doesn’t like to sit still for too long.

When Tinashe was just 8 years old, her parents—mother of Danish, Norwegian and Irish descent; Zimbabwean father (Tinashe means “We are with God” in his native Shona language)—moved the family from Lexington, Kentucky, to Los Angeles to help her pursue a career in Hollywood. At 10, she was acting alongside Tom Hanks in the 2004 movie The Polar Express; at 16 she opened Justin Bieber’s My World Tour with girl group the Stunners and had three episodes of the sitcom Two and a Half Men to her name.

In 2012, Tinashe dropped her first two mixtapes, In Case We Die and Reverie, and was signed

by RCA Records, who released her 2014 debut album, Aquarius, which featured the global smash hit “2 On” and the Kanye-endorsed “All Hands on Deck.” Industry insiders tipped her as the next big thing. But things didn’t go as planned.

Creative differences with RCA over her second album, 2016’s Nightride, prompted the label to refuse to properly promote it, which also took a toll on the follow-up, 2018’s Joyride.

Within a year, Tinashe declared she was leaving RCA to take back control of her art.

Today, at 28, she’s an independent trailblazer back at the top of her game and has

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just released her fifth album, 333. From frustrated majorlabel newcomer to flourishing independent artist, Tinashe discusses how setting new boundaries helped her create her most honest release to date. the red bulletin: Looking back at those turbulent years, what do you make of it all now? tinashe: I feel that I was a victim of the system. I really believe all the individuals I worked with at [RCA] did support me and wanted to see me win, but the way the system is set up, and the decisions that were made, ended up being detrimental to my career.

Was that the reason why you parted ways with RCA? It really wasn’t something that happened overnight, more a very slow, insidious process where I was starting to have intrusive, negative thoughts about my career. I realized that my self-confidence had been damaged and I let all this criticism seep into my consciousness. That had never happened to me before. As soon as I recognized it, I knew I needed to make a change.

How did you make that happen?

I built a brand-new team from the ground up. I found new people who understood my

Just unplug from the Matrix …

Literally get off and delete the app. It’s just about having that discipline with yourself. You don’t have to read anything, ever. You start reading and you sink deeper and deeper into it.

The best thing to do is unplug, get out into nature, go be with your family.

Is there anything else you’ve had to work on since becoming an independent artist?

I’ve had to learn how to set new boundaries, how to put myself first. Giving my life that structure was really important while creating this new album.

So many of those themes, like letting go, grappling with it and going back and forth with it, are what a lot of the songs ended up being about.

What’s the story behind the album’s title, 333?

They’re angel numbers. To me, they signify that I’m on the right track, moving in the right direction, and that I’m protected in the decisions I make and can move forward without fear or hesitation.

Tinashe’s latest album, 333, is out now on Tinashe Music Inc; tinashenow.com THE RED BULLETIN

WILL LAVIN

Walking away from a major recording contract might seem like career suicide, but the pop star says it was a rebirth for her creative side.

You mentioned criticism. How do you deal with that now?

I’ve learned that a news cycle is very quick—24 hours at best.

So, if I’m being dragged for whatever reason—or I’m on the receiving end of some criticism online that I don’t want to see—I know that I can log off, disappear for a day and it’ll probably be OK. I could even log off for a week or a month.

Take a break from it all.

YIMMY YAYO

HITTING THE RESET BUTTON

“I’VE LEARNED HOW TO SET NEW BOUNDARIES, HOW TO PUT MYSELF FIRST.”

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T H E D E PA RT U R E

Utah Desert

STAR TRIP TROUPERS “There’s a reason why I asked Blake [Sommer] and Jack [Graham] to join me on this adventure,” says Coloradobased photographer Noah Wetzel of the MTB aces captured in this atmospheric nighttime shot. “Besides their amazing riding abilities, they are incredibly mildmannered and motivated.” Stoicism and determination are essential traits when braving the 104° daytime heat of the Utah desert near Lake Powell, then shooting into the early hours. Plus some good antiperspirant, obviously. noahwetzel.com

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NOAH WETZEL

DAVYDD CHONG

Yosemite National Park

SWEET DREAMS

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and Alexander Wick definitely had a tribute in mind when he shot climbers Philipp Bankosegger, Luke Lalor and Chris Rudolph taking a nap beside Salathé Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. The German photographer was inspired by American Tom Frost’s image of his compatriot Royal Robbins napping during the first-ever ascent in 1961.

Instagram: @alex.ander.wick

ALEXANDER WICK/RED BULL ILLUME

DAVYDD CHONG

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T H E D E PA RT U R E

Patagonia, Chile

SHOOTING THE RAPIDS

Trek through jungle, lug kayak, shoot, descend whitewater drop, check gear for water damage, shoot, scale granite wall, shoot, dangle off ledge, shoot. Multitasking can be a challenge in the most mundane environment, but this expedition to traverse Patagonia’s triple crown of rivers—Rio Baker, Rio Blanco (pictured) and Rio Pascua—with fellow kayak legends Nouria Newman and Ben Stookesbury tested Erik Boomer’s ability to switch between athlete and photographer modes. Judging from images like this, it seems he ultimately aced that test.

Instagram: @eboomer Scan this QR code to watch a video of the team kayaking Patagonia’s three toughest rivers for the very first time.

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ERIK BOOMER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

DAVYDD CHONG

T H E D E PA RT U R E

Playlist

AN EAR FOR FEAR

King of horror-film scores Danny Elfman on chilling tunes that will haunt you this Halloween season.

D

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BERNARD HERRMANN PSYCHO (1960) “I would consider this one of the greatest movie scores ever written. It was bold and imaginative, something that I’d never heard before, and clearly it made the [Alfred Hitchcock] film something else.

Without [Herrmann’s] score, it would have been a different film. So, for any film composer, Psycho is going to be an extraordinary statement of what music can do for a movie.”

VARIOUS ARTISTS THE SHINING (1980) “Another brilliant use of music to image. [Director Stanley] Kubrick didn’t like using composers, so he went for classical music that already existed—there’s Béla Bartók, Penderecki and other composers he listened to. The music was put in there so perfectly that you feel like he’s designing entire sequences of his film around it. And it was inspiring— so powerful and evocative.”

COLIN STETSON HEREDITARY (2018) “This score is really bold and strong, and it changed the whole effect of this wonderfully creepy movie.

In fact, my son, who was 14 at the time, stopped being a horror fan after that.

[Laughs.] There was a point in the middle of the movie where he had to go out to the lobby to catch his breath. It finally put him over the top. So it’s a must-see if you love horror.”

THE RED BULLETIN

JACOB BOLL

FRANZ WAXMAN THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) “I grew up on horror films and spent every weekend in theaters. I think [this would be] the first great horror score, because it was evocative, romantic, heavy, and there really was nothing like that before. It was like inventing the language of orchestral film composition, developing what music could do for the images.”

MARCEL ANDERS

anny Elfman’s West Hollywood workplace is named Studio Della Morte (Studio of Death) with good reason: It’s like a museum of horror and sci-fi memorabilia, mostly from films he scored. Since 1985, the 68-year-old composer has put music to more than 100 movies, created iconic theme tunes for TV shows including The Simpsons and released non-film-related music, most recently his second solo album, the “chamber punk” Big Mess. Best known, though, are his film scores for director Tim Burton, including Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

For Halloween, the four-time Oscar nominee reveals his own favorite creepy film scores. dannyelfman.com

COLLECTIVE

GENIUS

EarthGang and JID don’t match common perceptions of Atlanta rappers. But as the city that’s transformed hip-hop continues to evolve, these performers are ready to make a statement about the soul of Atlanta.

Words MAURICE G. GARLAND Photography CAM KIRK

EarthGang (left) and JID (above) are old friends who together formed the Spillage Village collective.

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C

old air conditioning is a welcome guest at Cam Kirk Studios when it is hot-ashell o’clock in the afternoon in the heart of Atlanta. While it isn’t the busiest area downtown, it is still easy to get caught up here, as you are literally at the intersection of arrival time, a good time and hard time.

The entrance to the brick building the studio calls home is steps away from a Greyhound station where nomads loitering outside will ask you for loose change, food, a phone charger or depending on the time of day, all three. The tall windows of the studio offer a bird’s-eye view of the legendary Magic City strip club that has now added “kitchen” to its name; the food offerings gained popularity when hometown favorite and NBA basketball player Lou Williams risked it all breaking COVID protocols in the 2020 “bubble” to stop by the notorious breast-and-thigh showcase just to get a plate of wings.

The backside of the building sits in the shadows of the Atlanta Detention

Center (or as the locals call it: “the jail”), which in case you’re wondering currently has a 2.4-star average on Google Reviews, with the most recent comment saying “would not recommend.”

Knowing that, this isn’t necessarily a corner that you want to get lost at, literally or figuratively.

But once you’re inside the building, it’s not difficult to find the actual studio.

You can either follow the sound of music that spurts out every time the doors swing open, or you can secretly trail the first 20-something-year-old you see wearing something designed by Kanye, Virgil or Travis onto the elevator to the fourth floor. The walls of the studio are decorated with crisp, high-contrast photos of the studio’s long list of clientele, which consists mostly of Atlanta rappers who have defined the sound of rap (and by default, pop) music for at least the last seven years.

Migos, Gucci Mane, Lil Baby, Young Thug, 2 Chainz and 21 Savage are among the many featured.

WowGr8 (left) and Olu formed EarthGang in 2008, while both of them were still in high school.

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THE RED BULLETIN

JID, who was photographed in Cam Kirk’s studio on September 2, got his moniker from his grandmother, who riffed on his jittery behavior as a kid.

“MUSIC IS COMMUNAL. YOU JUST CAN’T WORK

BY YOURSELF AND EXPECT PEOPLE TO FEEL IT.” THE RED BULLETIN

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“MIRRORLAND WAS LIKE A BROADWAY MUSICAL. GHETTO GODS IS THE REALITY SHOW.”

EarthGang, who were shot in Atlanta on August 2, earned a Grammy nomination in 2020 for Best Rap Performance and another in 2021 for Best R&B Song.

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Today’s talent, however, who has also achieved a decent amount of notoriety, has noticed his own portrait is nowhere to be found. “When you gonna put me on one of these walls bro,” asks JID jokingly, but equally puzzled, as he greets the studio’s owner and namesake.

“Soon—we’re going to change that today,” Kirk replies, laughing at the entourage of weed aroma that has followed JID into the space.

The omission, as unintentional as it might be, does speak to the Atlanta rap scene’s representation at large. JID is a part of the Spillage Village collective, which includes friends and Dreamville labelmates WowGr8 and Olu of EarthGang. While the three of them have Grammy nominations and passport stamps congruent to most of the faces on the wall and the photographer who put them there, they aren’t always the first, nor most mentioned when it comes to the city’s current wave of rap artists.

Each of them expect that to change with their new albums—EarthGang’s Ghetto Gods and JID’s The Forever Story— dropping at different points this year.

“A lot of people, if they weren’t real fans of us like that, they wouldn’t even know we was from Atlanta,” says Olu, who along with WowGr8 graduated from Atlanta’s storied Benjamin E. Mays high school, which was also attended by all four members of legendary Southern Hip-Hop group Goodie Mob. “Because we may not look like the typical Atlanta artist that is portrayed in the media.”

In this case, “typical” has a colorful gray area since just about every Atlanta rapper, trap or not, shares either similar accents, hairstyles, fashion tastes or that lingering desire to prove “the South got something to say.” But much like how reality television show producers bypass the city’s rich heritage of Black accomplishments in the realms of business, politics, real estate, higher education, medicine and technology in favor of drink-throwing drama, much music coverage of Atlanta tends to spend most of its time exploring the trap genre, while almost completely ignoring anything outside of it. Which wasn’t always the case.

Before the rapper and producer T.I. branded it, “trap music” or anything street (Hitman Sammy Sam, Ghetto 28

“I AM TRYING TO GROW IT AND KEEP IT FRESH AND PROVE MY FANS RIGHT,” SAYS JID ABOUT HIS NEW ALBUM.

JID has collaborated with such talents as Method Man, J. Cole, Joey Bada$$, Hollywood JB and all the artists in Spillage Village.

“A LOT OF PEOPLE, IF THEY WEREN’T REAL FANS OF US, THEY WOULDN’T KNOW WE WAS FROM ATLANTA.”

Spillage Village was formed in 2010, when the members of EarthGang and JID were all going to Hampton University in Virginia.

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Mafia) pretty much lived up to its title and stayed confined in a specific set of neighborhood borders, while combinations of positive (Arrested Development), player (Outkast) and party (Ludacris) music were what made it to Rap City and thus other cities in the process. But in the age of the internet, where more information and tools became accessible—and did so at a time when Atlanta was rapidly becoming number one in income inequality in the United States—all that was considered underground or lowly found a way in and eventually to the top of the charts.

“I know niggas like them, who are my friends,” says JID. “Their stories are real and representative of what I grew up seeing and admiring about my city. It’s real and authentic. Their stories will always be important and need to be told.

I support that shit 100 percent.”

Olu agrees. “I’m from Atlanta, and if niggas from there don’t listen, it matter to me,” he says. “If we’re not making music that don’t someway connect to them, we’re not doing it right.”

WowGr8 has a perspective that has a hint of cynicism. “As much as I’m a product of the city, I’m a product of the internet,” he says. “You can’t tell me you like different styles of clothes but not different styles of music.”

Which is why with Ghetto Gods, EarthGang is intentionally going in a different direction from their 2019 breakthrough effort, Mirrorland. COVID is not being credited as an executive producer, but it did influence how the album was created. Between quarantine and live shows coming to a screeching halt, EarthGang couldn’t tour. This gave them an opportunity to lock in at home and reconnect with the energy that had fueled the early part of their career.

“Recording while traveling, you learn about the world but you learn a lot about yourself,” says Olu, admitting that the duo had not recorded a project in Atlanta exclusively since signing to J. Cole’s Dreamville in 2017. “It was like showing a reflection of everything you saw in the world and the cultures you experienced.”

But he also brings up a comparison that frequent collaborator and fellow Spillage Village producer Hollywood JB suggested to him. “He said with Ghetto Gods, it feels like we understood the assignment and did what needed to be done,” Olu says. “But with Mirrorland, we were all over the place.

It was so dense, but sometimes you need shit like that. Something you can listen to for 10 years and still find something.”

Most if not all of the guest features on Ghetto Gods are fellow Atlanta artists—ranging from Yung Baby Tate to CeeLo Green—while the producers include platinum prodigies such as JetsonMade and local-legend progeny like Big Korey of Oomp Camp Productions. Pretty much, this album is EarthGang’s version of clicking their heels and saying “there’s no place like home.”

“Mirrorland was like ‘Atlanta: The Musical,’ a Broadway show,” says WowGr8. “Ghetto Gods is the movie, the reality show.”

“We just wanted [this album] to sound like Atlanta,” says Olu about EarthGang’s newest project, Ghetto Gods.

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t’s a few weeks before JID’s visit, and when WowGr8 and Olu arrive at Cam Kirk Studios, they are too tired to be concerned about the pictures on the wall or why they aren’t in any of them.

The question they have is simply “What are we doing here today?” To be fair, the photo shoot for this cover story is sandwiched between the Lollapalooza festival they performed at in Chicago the day before and the Gorillaz show they were booked to be at in London the following day. So yeah, they are probably just looking at calendar invites at this point.

With suitcases in tow, there’s a good chance that neither one of them is going to get to spend any real time at home to enjoy simple pleasures like cooking a meal, chilling with family or washing clothes. Which is why Olu is pondering just picking up some new clothes at Lenox Mall on the way to the airport and WowGr8 is negotiating a deal with stylist Daryl Mapp to buy the leopard-print Saint Laurent shirt he’s having a hard time parting with.

The situation is a familiar one given that both EarthGang and JID have essentially lived on the road since they went on their first tour in 2014, opening up for Ab-Soul. From there they would build reputations for being electric performers as they were each featured on tours with Mac Miller, Bas and J. Cole while also co-headlining their own Never Had Shit Tour.

“Ever since I’ve been on tour, I haven’t written a song without thinking about performing it,” says WowGr8, who also says he actually stopped writing altogether recently, citing how wordy lyricism should take a back seat to clarity that listeners can feel and understand. “Some people get so caught up in the sport of it, trying to show they can hit the most backflips.

That’s cool, but to a crowd of people?

No one is going to remember that.”

Although it’s worth noting that the one exception is actually in his crew.

JID, who is known for microphone acrobatics and at times pausing after performing songs to catch his own breath, once almost made a stage and ceiling cave in during a show at Ithaca College in 2019. Surely, someone remembered that.

“I have one last personal goal to achieve as an artist,” WowGr8 continues. “Arena tour. I don’t feel like I have to beat the sales game or

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JID, who says Sly Stone is his all-time favorite artist, was nominated for a Grammy in 2020 for Best Rap Performance.

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EARTHGANG AND JID AIM TO TAKE ATLANTA WITH THEM AS THEY HIT THE ROAD. streaming game, I have to beat the touring game. We just started headlining tours in 2019, so we should start doing amphitheaters next year and the arenas after that.”

That goal doesn’t seem beyond their grasp considering that EarthGang has a strong enough reach to do shows at the bottom of the planet during the height of a global pandemic. In December 2020, the duo damn near went viral when images of them performing for a maskless crowd surfaced on Instagram. Some fans left comments asking if the pictures were a photo dump of past years, while others accused them of being reckless. What they were seeing was EarthGang performing for crowds of 7,000 to 15,000 people over the span of three days, outside in New Zealand, which at the time was the safest country in the world, with zero positive COVID cases.

The show was originally booked in 2019 for the following year, but we all know how that worked out.

“I’m playing Globally Monopoly, I keep trying to tell y’all,” their manager, Barry Johnson, bragged in the captions of one of his posts showing the concert. “EarthGang is the only hiphop act in America doing festival dates currently I’m pretty sure!”

At that time, it was true. Especially considering the dates were between December 31 and January 5. Meaning that EarthGang flew into New Zealand two weeks prior to quarantine before doing the shows, sacrificing spending the holidays with family and in WowGr8’s case missing Christmas with his 3-year old son.

“Missing Christmas is a big deal,” admits WowGr8, who is pretty open about how he is the primary caretaker of his child. “But coming back with a bunch of money is also a big deal.”

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A

bunch of money and how one spends it is now the topic of discussion in JID’s dressing room.

The artist, who opted out of a shave from the shoot’s hired barber and brought some of his own clothes because “I stay camera ready” has pulled out a delicate, vintage Sly Stone T-shirt he has packed in his Louis Vuitton duffle bag. He’s justifying spending $800 on it (the shirt, not the bag) because one, that’s his favorite artist, two, he’s never seen his face on a shirt before and three, because he “wears the hell out of it all the time,” including right now.

“Make sure you write that these pants are from the 1930s,” he says, inferring that the patchwork trousers he’s rocking today also cost a pretty penny. But at the same time, he’s trying to save a buck or two, asking stylist Kellye Mapp (Daryl’s partner), “Can I have these?” every time she pulls out a new pair of socks.

Bouncing around like that is a part of JID’s jittery personality. He talks in damn near the same cadence that he raps, short bursts with more words than you thought he could fit in there. But today, he doesn’t have many words to offer about his new album.

“I can’t tell you,” is one response when asked about specifics, and “It’s my favorite that I made so far” is what he says when asked about it in general.

“I’m just trying to grow it and keep it fresh and prove my fans right,” he says in one of the rare instances where he opens up about the new music on the album. “I want them to be able to brag on me like ‘this is a great body of work.’

That’s always the intense part, making something that someone never heard before.”

WowGr8 jokes that JID tends to overrap with the “Eminem disease,” but that sickness has helped him build a healthy mixed bag of features on songs from artists including Doja Cat, Dua Lipa, Conway the Machine, Denzel Curry, Free Nationals and even “up next” Atlanta rappers Grip and Kenny Mason.

While he’s tightlipped about who will be on his The Forever Story album, he insists that the story is the product of an ensemble cast, because that’s the way it should be told.

“Music is communal,” he says. “You can’t just work by yourself and expect people to feel it. You need some outside feedback.”

EarthGang shares similar sentiments, revealing that a long list of artists including Andre 3000 and David Banner stopped by during the Ghetto Gods sessions, neither of whom are confirmed to actually appear on the album.

“I know a lot of niggas say you save money recording at home because you can wake up and create. That’s a beautiful thing,” says Olu. “But I love going to the studio. That’s like going to the gym to work out or going to the court to play ball. You get a lot of that energy that you can’t get being locked up at home in front of the computer. Even if you’re not making music, just being around the creative, that’s the real fun.”

Fun is something that both parties seem to be having as they, and the rest of the world, look forward to moving freely around the world again. But as EarthGang and JID start to return to their road lives, the hope is that they continue to take the city with them wherever they go, even if it doesn’t fit the rest of the world’s conception of Atlanta as the city changes by the minute.

“Really, being here for the past year helped me understand the world is coming here,” says Olu. “We gotta embrace that shit but keep our essence, too. There’s a connection between the stories we tell and the shit people see.

Buildings have an expiration date; it’s about the spirits.”

Olu pauses and then continues. “We just wanted [this album] to sound like Atlanta,” he says. “Some stuff we do is so cerebral, which is cool and different.

But niggas also need stuff they can’t stop looking at, too.”

Picture that, frame it and hang it.

THE RED BULLETIN

Breaking Free

At 18, Logan “Logistx” Edra is already a world-class dancer, a social activist and an Instagram sensation, but she’s also part of a growing movement of elite performers who are speaking out about the importance of mental health.

On a journey to find her authentic self, Logistx is ready for her reveal.

Words GLORIA LIU Photography YSA PÉREZ

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L

et’s begin with the night that many of us came to know her name.

It was the 2018 Silverback Open in Philadelphia, one of breaking’s most prestigious international competitions.

Logistx was only 15. She was still mostly unknown on the world stage. Sure, she had been winning battles around her hometown of San Diego since the age of 10. She had talent. Maybe you’d even call her a phenom. But the world’s best B-Girls were there. Standing just fivefoot-one and with baby hairs framing her childlike face, Logistx did not look like the B-Girl to beat them.

But she had done her research. For each opponent, she had a plan. She beat Sarah Bee to advance to the top 8, then Kate to reach the semifinals, and then, in the semifinals, she beat Ami of Japan.

Ami had just won the first Red Bull BC One World Final for women, essentially, breaking’s world championship. This was like Logistx just beat the queen.

But she didn’t have time to bask in her big win. She was now up against Jilou, a slender German known for her acrobatic style. In this final battle, she planned to throw her one-handed back handspring, because Jilou did a lot of flips. But she also knew that planning would only go so far—winning would require improvisation.

Three rounds. Jilou set the tone. She danced right up to Logistx, threw a big 36

grin and two emphatic peace signs, then exploded into a clean, dynamic set.

Logistx answered, building into her first round with a swaggy segment of top rock—how a breaker typically begins their set, by dancing standing up—her feet moving so quickly they appeared to float. Then she dropped into an air flare, flipping into a handstand and spinning her legs in the air with the velocity of helicopter blades.

The B-Girls battled. The beat thumped.

The crowd roared. Logistx threw her onehanded back handspring. Jilou threw a backflip into a layout. Logistx answered with a head drill, flares, reverse flares.

The crowd chanted: USA! USA! The MC lifted a small brown hand into the air.

Winner: Logistx.

This moment in October 2018 changed everything for her as a breakdancer. In the upcoming year, she would sign with Red Bull as a sponsored athlete. She would be the youngest competitor invited to the 2019 BC One World Finals, at 16. She would appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Which only makes it harder to believe that just a week earlier she had attempted to take her own life. It was as if there were two different people: the B-Girl who soared to incredible highs, the young woman who experienced devastating lows. Actually, for Logan “Logistx” Edra, this was not so far from the truth.

At 16, Logistx was the youngest invited competitor at the 2019 Red Bull BC One World Finals. She’ll return to the World Finals in Poland this November.

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L

ogan Edra has many superpowers, but the one I notice first is her ability to make you like her immediately. Maybe it’s her sweet voice and guileless affect. Maybe it’s our shared Asian-American heritage—I’m the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, and Logan is Filipina-American. Or maybe it’s how, when I meet her for the first time, in the lobby of the Marriott hotel in downtown Orlando, she bypasses my extended hand and gives me a hug. Either way, though Logan is 18 now, technically an adult, she evokes all my deep-seated big-sister instincts.

It’s the weekend of Red Bull’s BC One National Finals. Logan isn’t competing, as she’s already qualified to go to the BC One World Finals in Poland in November.

Right now, she’s just concerned about getting lunch.

We walk down to a smoothie shop about a half-mile away, accompanied by her boyfriend, Yonell “Nelzwon” Damata, a thin, quiet 19-year-old with soft eyes and a mop of black curls, and their friend Pep-C, a smiley young B-Girl from Indiana. Both are among the top-ranked in the nation. Logan and I walk ahead, and as we cut through empty lots she reveals herself to be kind, cerebral and mature beyond her years. She asks me questions about myself: what is my ethnicity, where do I live, do I do any sports or dance? When I ask her deeper questions, she acknowledges them with a thoughtful “mmm!” before responding.

We talk about social media, how it’s a double-edged sword. Last year, right before the pandemic hit, Logan moved from Southern California, where she grew up, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Instagram helped her find the dance community in her new home, and it’s also her business tool—she has over 160,000 followers. But she’s well aware of the app’s toxic effects, particularly on girls and young women. In 2019, she collaborated with choreographer D-Trix to make a dance video depicting the way social media fuels isolation, depression and anxiety. She was invited on Ellen to perform the routine. “But I feel like I’ve gotten to a good place with social media,” she tells me, as we cross an intersection.

She has a rule for herself: It’s OK to post things or respond to comments and DMs. But when she starts mindlessly scrolling, that’s her cue to pick up a book.

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As we wait for our smoothies, Logan tells me that she sees herself as an artist, not just a breaker. The video she created with D-Trix is among several art-meetsdance clips she’s made, and she also does choreographed hip-hop and some acting, too. (You can see her in the 2020 Netflix film Full Out 2.) One day she’d even love to be in a Broadway play.

But despite her versatility, for now Logan is focused on becoming one of the best breakers in the world. She’s targeting the 2024 Paris Olympics, where breaking will make its debut. In addition to chasing a medal—she thinks she has a good chance—she sees the Games as a powerful platform through which to share her values.

She’s outspoken about the importance of mental health and has been open about

experiencing depression and being diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. She’s also a proponent of gender equality and women’s rights and has been vegan since she was 12. “I just want to spread love and positivity and light through what I’m doing,” she says, “and what better way to do that than the Olympics?”

We walk our smoothies back to the hotel. I ask Logan if she’d prefer I call her Logan or Logistx. “You can call me Logan,” she says. “Or Lo. A lot of people call me that too.” Logistx is her performance personality; Logan or Lo is who she is in her day-to-day life. Logan is the one who’s kind and considerate and makes sure others are comfortable and happy. When it’s time to battle, she’s Logistx—the B-Girl who’s here to win.

Logan is outspoken about the importance of mental health and is open about her experiences.

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“I just want to spread love and positivity and light through what I’m doing.”

Logistx was only 10 when she joined her first breaking crew.

“I felt like I could talk to her like an adult,” says mentor Valerie “Val Pal” Acosta.

From her very first dance class, Logan knew she had found something: “That was it for me.”

I

n the beginning, of course, it was just Logan. As a little girl she was shy and did not appear to be particularly athletic. Her parents enrolled her in tennis and soccer. “Every sport they put me in I was really bad,” she laughs. “I was uncoordinated. I was just this little wet noodle.” But she did like to draw and sing, and she grew up listening to hip-hop. One day, when Logan was 7, her dad said he was taking her to her after-school drawing class. But when he opened the classroom door, she saw that he’d brought her to a kids’ hip-hop dance lesson instead.

Logan didn’t want to do the class.

But her dad said just try it—if you don’t like it you don’t have to come back. So she stood in a corner and tried not to be seen. The teacher started teaching a simple two-step. “You know when you do something and you feel so embarrassed but you’re having a lot of fun?” Logan recalls. “That was it for me. It was like when you ride a roller coaster and it’s scary, but when it’s done you’re like, oh my god, I have to go again.”

Logan began attending hip-hop classes weekly. On her way to and from the classes, she’d walk by another studio, where she’d see a kids’ breaking class.

That class was taught by a woman.

Wow, girls can do this? Logan thought.

Not long after that, she went to her first breaking class. The roller-coaster feeling was even more intense there. Logan was drawn to the athleticism that breaking involved. She was down on the floor trying things, and some of the moves were risky; they could hurt if you messed up. It was so interesting and fun.

Of course Logan wanted to take the class taught by the B-Girl. That B-Girl turned out to be Valerie “Val Pal” Acosta, who was 27 at the time. Right away Logan stood out—a calm, collected 8-year-old who picked up material remarkably quickly and asked analytical questions to break down moves. (Her dad coined her breaking name, Logistx, because she was always methodical and liked having a plan.)

Val started training Logan privately.

Logan’s parents converted a bedroom into a little dance studio, hanging mirrors on its purple walls. Val would come over once or twice a week to coach Logan, and often she’d stay for dinner with the family afterward. Under Val’s tutelage, Logan blossomed. When she was 10, she joined Val’s breaking crew, Underground Flow.

She was by far the youngest member, but “I felt like I could talk to her like an adult,” Val says.

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Apprenticeship and crews are both foundational elements of breaking culture. Ask a breaker about their background and they will tell you who they learned from. Logan credits her Underground Flow mentors for shaping her dance style as well as her lifestyle.

Before joining the crew, Logan ate like a typical kid—she loved McDonald’s. But many members of the crew ate plant-based diets. “We never told her you should be vegan,” says Val, but sometimes they would take her to vegan restaurants and let her try the food. “One day on her own, she was like, ‘I watched this documentary.

I researched veganism, and I want to be vegan,’ ” Val recalls. “I was like, ‘Are you sure? You don’t have to go totally vegan; it’s OK to eat meat here and there.’ She was like, ‘No. After I’ve seen what I’ve seen and know what I know, I can’t not become vegan.’ ” Logan was only 12.

“I think that was the transition into my spirituality, because it introduced me to this idea of oneness over all,” she says today. “Not just connection and oneness with other animals and in terms of what I’m eating or not eating, but also with plants and the earth and other things in this physical realm.” Spirituality is important to Logan, though she doesn’t identify with any established religion.

By this point, Logan’s dance career was picking up. She had been battling for a couple of years. Young B-Girls like her were still rare, so she usually went up against boys and men who were older and bigger than her. It was intimidating, and Logan would always get nervous before battles. (“That honestly never went away,” she says.) In the days leading up to a jam she would be filled with dread.

Often she’d cry. Now she knows this was her anxiety. But at the time the only way she knew how to cope was by hiding it.

When it came time to battle, the nerves got better. Logan won. A lot.

She started to notice that people were intimidated by her. If she showed up to a jam, guys would ask if she was battling, and when she said yes, they’d say, “Oh, fuck.”

It was also around this time that Logan’s parents split. Her mom moved to Florida, but everyone agreed it was best for Logan to stay with her dad in California, for her career. She began homeschooling, and when she was 14, her dad got a place in L.A., because they were going back and forth to events so often.

Logan’s schedule was intense. She took gymnastics for five years, because her dad thought it would help her with her strength and power for breaking.

So a typical day would begin with school, then homework, then one or two classes, either gymnastics or breaking or choreo.

“She had so many things going on— my personal worry was when can she just be a kid?” Val recalls. “Her schedule was completely packed all the time with classes and lessons and training.” Val and her boyfriend, Villn, would try to remind their youngest crew member that it was OK to take a break sometimes.

“She didn’t really understand,” Val says.

Val could tell Logan felt a lot of pressure to win. But she didn’t know the darkness that had begun to envelope Logan’s young life.

“I was uncoordinated.

I was just this little wet noodle.”

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At 12, Logan became a vegan. “I think that was my transition into my spirituality,” she says.

“It was like when you ride a roller coaster and it’s scary, but when it’s done, you’re like, I have to go again.”

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For Logan, the pandemic arrived almost like a blessing.

She finally allowed herself to slow down.

W

hen it comes to the topic of abuse, Logan is very careful about what she reveals. She will say it began when she was 10 and ended when she was 17, that it was mostly psychological but sometimes physical, and that it occurred at the hands of more than one person, though she does not want to say whom. In a blog post from last December, she wrote, “I ... have distinct memories as a kid being yelled at while crying during training, being forced to practice every single day and drill moves over and over when I didn’t want to.” Due to the abuse, at the age of 14, Logan became depressed. She

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lost interest in the things she used to love, including dance. Gradually, she began to lose interest in life.

Ironically, she was performing better than ever. The training was paying off: Thanks to the choreo work, she had developed a unique, dynamic style of top rock, and she had a remarkable amount of power, thanks to the gymnastics. She was winning events back-to-back. “I’m here at Red Bull, and at these events I’m Logistx,” she says. “I’m basically performing, I’m acting.” People asked how she was doing. Logistx was doing good. Then she would go home, where Logan felt empty and lonely.

The highs and lows were extreme.

At 15, Logan attempted suicide. When it didn’t work she was relieved. She told her dad. It was a wake-up call for them both.

The next week was Silverback, which she’d been training hard for—too hard, she now realizes. She went, but she and her dad decided the only goal would be to have fun. When she got there, she was relaxed.

Logistx switched on. She knew what to do.

But if the victory at Silverback brought new opportunities, it also brought more attention and pressure. The mask of Logistx began to slip. “I’d travel and I would win and do good, but behind closed doors life was not something THE RED BULLETIN

I looked forward to,” Logan says. “It got to the point where Logistx is doing good but Logan’s struggles became so overwhelming, Logan would start to show through Logistx.” Her performance suffered. In November 2019, Logistx went to the BC One Finals in Mumbai and got knocked out in the first round. By early 2020, Logan was ready to quit breaking.

T

“I think about how I’ve developed like a baby tree,” Logan says.

“There’s all these leaves and branches I can still grow.”

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he pandemic arrived almost like a blessing. Logan finally allowed herself to slow down. She had just moved to Florida, to live with her mother for the first time in six years. She left the abuse back in California. In the absence of competitions and constant travel, she began healing. She started going to therapy. She meditated more. She built a new community around a local breaking school. She grew particularly close to one of the instructors there, a B-Boy called Nelz. They began dating. He loved and accepted her for who she was, and that helped her accept herself. In this new environment, she felt like she had more control over her own life.

She began to share her mental health struggles on social media, and she found strength in seeing that she was not alone.

Through comments and DMs, she spoke to other people who had also experienced trauma, depression, anxiety. In being more honest and vulnerable, she felt more like her authentic self.

Lo had always been a nickname for Logan, but in the past year and a half she’s leaned into it more. “Back then Logan was the one who went through all the trauma and abuse and wore the mask, and the mask was Logistx,” she says. Lo feels like a new version of herself.

Thinking of your dance persona as separate and distinct is pretty common in breaking, says Acosta. In fact, so many breakers primarily use their performance names that it was at times difficult to track down the given names for many of the people in this story. Logan likens it to an actor or actress taking on a role, or an athlete becoming someone else when they put on a helmet or step on the court.

Like Kobe and LeBron: “When they talk in their interviews they’re really cool, but you watch game footage and you’re like, dang, you’re kinda mean,” she laughs.

In the ’70s, when breaking was getting started among Black and Latino youth in the Bronx, battling was a form of turf war.

“If you were a good dancer, you went to different neighborhoods and you were looking for someone to test yourself against,” explains Raphael Xavier, a

professional breaker and professor of hiphop dance at Princeton University. “If you went into another neighborhood and they recognized you, you were gonna have to fight or dance or both.” Today’s B-Boys and B-Girls, of course, don’t actually brawl— you can’t touch your competitor in a battle.

But that combative mentality is still core to breakdance culture. Intimidating your opponent through eye contact, or even dissing them through hand gestures called burns, is all fair game.

Logistx doesn’t burn her opponents; it’s not really her style. But she does have to switch modes to win. When I ask Lo what Logistx is thinking during a battle, she giggles in her endearing, Alvin and the Chipmunks way. “There’s a lot of shittalking,” she admits. “Like, ‘Oh I can smoke her right now,’ or ‘She ain’t got anything on me.’ It’s kind of fun, like you have a superhero character. I definitely see Logistx as this girl that’s unstoppable.”

Her therapist has helped her realize, though, she doesn’t have to be Logistx all the time. These days she feels much more comfortable turning that on and off.

One day last year Lo was meditating.

She did a mental exercise where she left her body and looked at herself from above. She saw a young girl. Wow, she’s really young, she thought. Why am I treating her like she’s a 27-year-old professional? For most of her life, Logan felt like she had to do it all, right now. If she didn’t keep achieving, she would become irrelevant. Now she realizes she has time. It’s why she feels ready to work toward the Olympics for the next few years, trusting that afterward she’ll be able to do the other things she hopes to do. “I think about how I’ve developed like a baby tree,” she says. “There’s all these leaves and branches I can still grow.”

I

have one more appointment with Logan that day in Orlando. I’m watching her film a video with hiphop dancer Leon “Kida the Great” Burns.

It’s a collab: Kida will choreograph and teach part of the routine to Logistx; Logistx will choreograph and teach Kida the rest.

Logan told me that people call her a sponge, because she soaks up material.

Now I get to see this preternatural learning in action. Kida shows her his set once, and in their first run-through she’s already got it—they’re almost perfectly synced. I ask Nelz, who’s sitting on the floor next to me, if this is normal for professional dancers. He says she picks it up really quickly, even for a pro.

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“When you’re an athlete you have to be focused; when you’re an artist you have to be free. When you’re an artistathlete, you have to be both.”

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THE RED BULLETIN

Logistx was photographed in Miami, near the William Powell Turnaround Bridge, on September 7.

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Now it’s Kida’s turn to learn from Logistx. Improvising on the spot, she demonstrates a simple breaking sequence that ends with her dropping to the floor and kicking both legs out while balancing on one hand. “Oh my god,” Kida says, shaking his head.

“Just try it,” Logistx says, smiling.

If you didn’t know, Kida is kind of a big deal. His Instagram videos have generated over 4 million followers, he’s danced with Usher, he won So You Think You Can Dance. But he’s having to work much harder to pick up the breaking moves. “Woo!” he whistles, watching Logistx demonstrate a move on the floor. “That looks crazy.” He tries it a few times himself.

“There you go!” says Logistx.

They spend most of the next 20 minutes getting Kida acquainted with the breaking footwork. Each time they rehearse the routine, Logistx gives it 100 percent, like any world-class athlete.

But when the cameras start rolling, I can see the entertainer, too. If Logistx was at a 10 before, she turns it up to 11 now. She is energy incarnate, popping and flowing with ferocity. She tips her baseball cap with swagger and flashes the camera a smile that all but sparkles.

She’s having fun. A small audience has gathered, entranced by the dancers.

Breaking is both sport and performance. “When you’re an athlete you have to be focused; when you’re an artist you have to be free. When you’re an artist-athlete, you have to be both,” Logan will later tell me.

When the shoot is over, Kida and Logistx high-five. The little crowd hoots and claps. That night, I will watch Logistx in an exhibition battle, but it’s a video she posts to Instagram on Monday that I keep thinking about. Dressed all in white, Logistx breaks in the center of a mostly empty room. Halfway through, a lone woman walks in and watches.

Logistx—or is it Logan, or Lo?—drops to the floor, sweeps a leg around and underneath herself, then flows into a tripod headstand and spins ethereally, one leg extended toward the heavens, the other folded. To accompany the clip, Logan selected a song by Nas, titled “Nobody.” It’s about finding a place where you can be anonymous, where no one knows your name, where you’re far away from your problems. The snippet she chose goes like this: “All my time has been focused on my freedom now/ Why would I join ’em when I know that I can beat ’em now?”

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SAMO VIDIC/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

Hole shot: Pilot Dario Costa makes his world-record flight through the Çatalca Tunnels in Turkey on September 4.

What Flies Beneath

Less than 45 seconds. That’s how quickly pilot Dario Costa pulled off one of the most ambitious feats in aeronautical history— the world’s longest underground flight. But it’s a course he’s been charting since birth. Here we examine what it takes to spend your life preparing to put it all on the line for 43.44 seconds.

Words JUSTIN HYNES

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I

t’s 4.30 a.m. on a chilly September morning in Istanbul. Dario Costa steps out of a caravan deep in the Çatalca Tunnels to the west of Turkey’s largest city. Usually bustling with traffic as part of the vast Northern Marmara Highway that links Europe to Asia, these twin bores carved through the hills are eerily empty right now. The roads are cordoned off, and vehicles have been redirected for a mile in all directions, in preparation for what’s to come.

Costa begins a slow bicycle ride along the quarter-mile length of the first passage, silently studying his surroundings. He slips into the moonlit stretch between the two tunnels, then enters the second mile-long passage, noting for the final time the distance between the walls as well as the positions of ceiling fans, electricity stations and signage stanchions, before turning back to attempt something that until now has only existed in the comicbook imaginings of film directors and special effects wizards. He will fly a plane through the hillside, just 30 inches above the asphalt and with only enough space above him for an average-sized man to stand.

“You see it all the time in action movies, but it’s always CGI,” Costa will say later with a wry smile. “Nobody has ever done it for real. I just wanted to see whether it was possible.”

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Costa has these possibilities covered.

The 41-year-old Italian is a world-class aerobatic and race pilot, the first from his home country to have competed in the Challenger Class of the former Red Bull Air Race World Championship, and one of just 12 pilots selected to fly in the top tier of that competition’s 2022 successor, World Championship Air Race.

Add in some moonlighting as a movie stunt car driver—his most recent gig was filming with Tom Cruise on Mission: Impossible 7, out next year—and Costa is uniquely placed to turn a far-fetched action-movie trope into reality and achieve a series of world records that include being the first to fly a plane through a tunnel, the longest flight under a solid obstacle and two more pioneering accolades: “I’ll be taking off from inside the first tunnel, then flying through a second tunnel,” he explains.

“Why take off inside a tunnel? It would have been a shame not to try it.”

The challenges mounted as details of the flight were considered. His Zivko Edge 540 aerobatics plane is a tailwheel aircraft. “I’m sitting with the nose up and the tail down on the ground,” he says. “I can’t see forward. For the initial part of the flight I’m basically blind and have to be very precise, making sure not to go too far to the left or right or I’ll hit the walls.”

And the walls are close—mere meters either side of his wingtips. As Anthony

MARCIN KIN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

“You see this all the time in action movies, but nobody has ever done it for real.”

Big ideas: Costa had been looking for a new challenge when Red Bull Turkey approached him about the tunnel pass.

Forty-five seconds of his life hanging in the balance. But this flight began long before that clock starts ticking—it stretches all the way back to his earliest memories of flying.

I

n 1979, amid the chaos of the Iranian revolution, Costa’s Persian mother and Italian father fled the country to Manchester, England, where Dario was born. Soon after, the family moved to Libya, where Costa’s father worked as an engineer and the 1-year-old was first introduced to aviation. By the time the family settled in the Italian city of Bologna, the peripatetic lifestyle had sparked Costa’s fascination with flight.

“Flying was freedom,” he says.

“Whenever I was in the air, everything

LITTLE ROOM TO MANEUVER The tight dimensions of Costa’s flight path Four road lanes wide, 3.28-ft-wide sidewalk on each side

Plane height: 7.38 ft

To ceiling fans: 22 ft

Tunnel height: 27.8 ft

Gap from either side of plane to wall: 13.1 ft

Tunnel width: 52.5 ft Plane width (wingtip to wingtip): 24.6 ft

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THE RED BULLETIN

LAURIE GREASLEY

Top gun: A snapshot from the Italian’s early years working as a stunt pilot.

on the ground was switched off—it was as if everything was possible.” The bedtime stories his grandmother read to him also fueled Costa’s desire. “One was Aladdin. The story of this guy and the flying carpet pushed me all the way.”

But heady, rarefied hopes of a career in aviation were brought crashing to earth by the reality of a working-class existence in northern Italy. “I was told I was not born into the right family or with the right financial situation. It was always, ‘You can’t do that, find another path, it’s impossible for someone like you.’ It just pushed me even more to prove them wrong.”

Costa secured himself a place at the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Baracca, a high school specializing in aviation technology, close to Bologna. There, his enthusiasm earned him the nickname “Aladino,” and he conducted his first solo flight at the age of 16. But, lacking the money to pay the huge expense of training for a commercial license, Costa’s days in the sky seemed numbered. He refused to accept defeat. “I sold fish, cleaned swimming pools, worked as a gardener. . . . Because of my family’s situation, I was able to go to university for free and learn physics. Then I got a job at my old high school. They needed someone to teach basic aerodynamics.

I found that I loved it.”

But even that wasn’t enough to finance the hours of flight time needed. When the money inevitably ran out, Costa was forced to stop. But fortune smiled again.

“The club where I was training needed a teacher—they asked if I would do it in exchange for flying hours. I cleaned the planes, fueled them, whatever I could.

There was a scholarship, and I finished first, so they paid for half of my license.”

In 2003 Costa completed the course, but no sooner had he realized his career in commercial aviation than a greater destiny revealed itself.

“A friend showed me a video of the Red Bull Air Race,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘OK, don’t bother yourself with airline jobs; that’s not what you’ve wanted to do since you were a kid. This is what you want to do.’ After that, everything I did was to get there.”

Costa obtained his instructor’s license, then pursued an aerobatics rating, once again bartering his way to qualification, sleeping in the hangar, teaching Aviation English and continuing to rack up vital hours in the cockpit. After moving to

EROS MAGGI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, SAMO VIDIC/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

Hill, Costa’s flight technician for the tunnel pass, explains that there’s no margin for error. “The tunnel is 6.72 meters [22 feet] high, and when Dario’s plane is at flight level the distance from the bottom of the landing gear to the top of the tail is around 2.25 meters [7.4 feet], so the level he has to maintain is about 75 centimeters above the road,” Hill explains. “The tunnel is 16 meters [52 feet] wide and the wingspan is 7.5 meters [24.6 feet], so there’s about 4 meters [13 feet] either side of Dario and 3.25 meters [10.6 feet] above him. It’s all very close.

And he’s going to do it at around 245 kilometers [152 miles] an hour.”

But Costa is used to tight spaces from his time in the Air Race. There, the 82-foot-high pylons the pilots were required to fly through were between 30 and 50 feet apart. Crucially, though, those inflatable pylons were designed to tear and collapse if clipped by a plane wing; the hazards in the tunnels are far less forgiving. “There are huge ventilation fans, lights and emergency exits,” says Costa. “What’s making me more nervous is the limitation in height, because there’s no evasive exit for me—I can’t pull out if I have a problem. And I might hit the ground with the tires and experience a ballooning effect, pushing me toward the roof. There are a lot of things to consider.”

He won’t have long to consider them: just 45 seconds. That’s how long it will take Costa from takeoff until exiting the second tunnel, almost 1.5 miles away.

Top: Costa inside the tunnel. Thankfully, he had a bit more clearance than this when making the tunnel pass. But when he’s traveling at roughly 152 mph, 13 feet on either side of the plane and less than 11 feet above leaves next to no margin for error.

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Above: The Italian pilot consults with Garcia de Albeniz Mikel Lucas, head of engineers for the tunnel project at Bionic Surface Technologies.

Left: Costa in training.

Improving his reaction times was a key element to the successful completion of his flight.

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I

n Istanbul, Costa says he feels ready.

The risk is palpable, but he insists that awareness of the dangers and knowing how to handle them are the keys to success. “I’m scared of flying, every day—that’s what keeps me alive,” he says emphatically. “But I respect the fear. I take it, analyze it, try to mitigate it. I do the homework. And that’s exactly

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what we’re doing with this project. Of course I’m scared, but I’m less scared of things I know more about. What’s important is that you have no big question marks.”

The process of removing those imponderables began in January this year, when Costa began an intense training program at the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center in Thalgau, Austria.

Helping to guide the pilot toward the levels of mental fitness required was York-Peter Klöppel, the center’s head of mental performance.

“It’s extremely challenging, physically and mentally,” says the German sports psychologist. “We’ve taken care of the physical aspect with one of our strength conditioning coaches and a physio. Over the last seven or eight months it’s been really beneficial. [Costa] has reported to us that when he’s been flying recently he’s able to pull more Gs, and that it doesn’t affect him so much. He’s made big improvements.”

The work has been on the mental side, too. “We’ve been focusing on improving his reaction time,” says Klöppel. “The system we’re using is called Sensory Station. What we’re able to do is set a point-of-view video of the

One Flight, Five World Records • Longest tunnel flown through with an airplane: 1,730 m [5,675.8 ft] • First airplane flight through a tunnel • Longest flight under a solid obstacle: 1,730 m [5,675.8 ft] • First airplane flight through two tunnels • First airplane takeoff from a tunnel

43.44 seconds

Last 492 ft of the tunnel is wider

SAMO VIDIC/RED BULL CONTENT POOL LAURIE GREASLEY

Milan, where he took on the role of chief instructor at Aero Club Milano, Costa finally found an opportunity to hone his skills to the competitive level required.

“They had 40 airplanes and were flying thousands of hours per year, and they had a more performant plane for students, so I could improve myself using that machine.” After he secured the Italian national championship in 2013, the call finally came—just not the one he was expecting. “Red Bull Air Race offered me a job as flight operations manager and development pilot,” he recalls, agonizingly.

Four years passed, with Costa watching the Air Race from the wings.

But his patience paid off—in 2018 he was at last called up to the series’ Challenger Class, the competition in which future Masterclass World Championship pilots might prove their worth. In his second race, Costa finished on the podium. The following year, he claimed his first win in Hungary—the first Italian to do so.

“It took me 15 years, but I did it,” he says of finally achieving his ambition. But in that same year a new blow came—the championship was canceled for good. “It was a massive shock,” he says.

Costa continued to work as a display pilot and began talks with the promoter behind the next iteration of the Air Race, but bubbling back to the surface came the old dream—to take on a new challenge that would bring the intricacies of aviation to a wider audience. “All the projects I’d been thinking of had science involved, but that can be hard to understand from the outside; I was looking for something relatable. By chance, a guy at Red Bull Turkey messaged me asking if I would consider flying through a tunnel. I just responded to him, ‘Find me one and I will fly through it.’

He came back with the Çatalca Tunnels, which were under construction at that time. It was perfect.”

The tunnel walls are just meters from his wingtips.

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Takeoff at 6:43 a.m. local time on Saturday, September 4, 2021

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Costa’s subterranean flight set five world records in just three-quarters of a minute, but for the film crews tasked with capturing this moment in history, more world-firsts were required. Alongside cameras mounted on the tunnel floors, ceiling, entrances and exits, a racing drone chased Costa’s plane along the whole route and a cable cam tracked it from takeoff— both aerobatic filming feats never attempted before. A bullet-time rig was also set up at the second tunnel entrance to capture a “slice” of frozen action similar to that seen in the Matrix movies, and a tailmounted cam gave a 360° view of the whole flight. Due to the tight confines of the cockpit, only one

ft

camera could be mounted in there, capturing Costa’s facial expression and his moment of tearful elation as he launched triumphantly out of the final tunnel.

Making the task harder, the Çatalca Tunnels are an operational part of the Northern Marmara Highway, fielding traffic 24 hours a day. Coordinating with the Turkish authorities, the team closed the highway at midnight before the flight, diverting vehicles for 2 kilometers [1.24 miles] ahead of the tunnel entrance, before working through the night rigging the cameras, then testing the setup by racing a BMW M along the flight path. Adding to the challenge, no person was allowed to remain in the tunnels—except, of course, Costa.

Every camera had to be activated ahead of time, then the crews hurriedly left via emergency exits.

And that’s where the fun began.

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“We are not birds; our bodies weren’t made for flying.

Whatever we do, we have to learn it.”

Flying art: Bike Life rider El Arte soars over Luis Banks as the duo mess around in New York’s Chinatown

Final soar: Costa’s Zivko Edge 540 plane exits the tunnel after 43.44 nail-biting seconds.

EROS MAGGI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, SAMO VIDIC/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

Mission accomplished: Costa experiences an overwhelming release of emotion following his intense, high-risk flight.

tunnel flight as a background, then a variety of things he needs to react to pop up on the screen. It’s a big touchscreen, so he has to hit them with his hands.

When we talk about improving reaction time, it’s two parts. The first is what we call neuroplasticity—the more we do something, the better we get at it; the connections in the brain become stronger. The other part is related to his optimal mental state. We worked on breathing, thought control, emotional regulation, making sure that he can get himself into an optimal state just before he’s starting the reaction training. That really makes a huge difference.”

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osta is convinced that the regime has massively improved his flying skills. “I’ve never done training like this. It’s not just how fast you react but how fast your brain elaborates the information it receives. The exercises are not just ‘lights on and touch the pad.’

It’s lights on, which color or which shape, and you touch it or you don’t touch it. When I started, my reaction time was 450 milliseconds. Now I can reach 210 milliseconds.”

Costa’s attention to detail also involved anticipating how his plane might behave in the tunnels. For this, he enlisted the

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“When I start flying, nothing else bothers me.” help of modeling expert Dr. Andreas Flanschger of aerodynamics R&D lab Bionic Surface Technologies. “We used computational fluid dynamics employed in Formula 1 to model the effect of airflow on cars,” says Flanschger. We built digital versions of the aircraft and tunnels to see what would happen. The first was air temperature. The density of air is affected by temperature, and if there’s a huge difference [in air density] when exiting the first tunnel and entering the second, [Costa] will feel it as a bump and it could be dangerous. We can only generate numbers, but they’re crucial because on the day they will define whether we have a go or a no-go.”

It’s not just the space between the tunnels that affects airflow and, by extension, stability. Just as a train hurtling through a tunnel pushes air ahead of it, so too does Costa’s plane— the displaced air causes small shockwaves

to return down the tunnel, potentially upsetting the balance of the plane.

Flanschger’s simulations modeled where those upsets might occur.

“Dario will get four additional bumps inside the tunnel, but at specific times.

They get weaker each time, with the first being the heaviest. Aerodynamically they’re not really critical, but if the pilot doesn’t know they’re coming they could prove pivotal. Through modeling we’re able to predict when they will arrive and how big they are. Now he’s prepared.”

At long last, though, the time for investigation and calculation comes to an end and the only thing remaining is execution. Now, 14 months of painstaking preparation boil down to a flash of groundbreaking precision.

“What am I expecting from those 45 seconds? Peace,” smiles Costa. “That’s the reward. It’s just the last 45 seconds of one year of work for so many people.

I want to prove that the work everybody has done is worth it.”

It’s also just the latest 45 seconds in a career born four decades ago in a young mind filled with tales of Arabian Nights, and that will continue long after the plane escapes those Çatalca Tunnels.

“Every morning I ask myself if I should fly or not. The important thing for me is that I have to learn something. The day I land, look back at the plane and say, ‘It was a useless flight today,’ that is the moment I will stop. Because you have to respect something we’re not born for.

We are not birds; our bodies weren’t made for flying. Whatever we do, we have to learn it. So the day when I stop learning is the day I will not fly again.

Because my ego will have become bigger than my knowledge.

“But at some point, I will stop flying and I’ll look back and say, ‘What did I do for the people? Did I entertain them enough? Did I help them to push for their dreams, like I did?’ ” First, though, he has the task at hand.

“As soon as I start flying, nothing else bothers me. I want to see how it feels to fly inside a tunnel, but in those 45 seconds I don’t think I’ll have time to feel anything other than just quietness.

Just like when I was a kid, everything switches off. And everything is possible.”

Dario Costa achieved his tunnel pass dream on September 4. To watch his amazing achievement, scan the QR code.

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ACROSS THE BOARD As a snowboarder, Maggie Leon can hold her own with the best pro riders.

And as a young engineer for Burton, she’s inventing new prototypes for adaptive athletes—and making the sport that she loves more accessible for everyone.

Words BILL DONAHUE Photography ASHLEY ROSEMEYER

Leon, 24, is one of the stars of The Uninvited III, an allwomen snowboard film slated to drop in November.

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hen spring comes to northern Vermont, the snow melts in the mountains and the snowboard runs become, sadly, long gooey patches of mud, Maggie Leon makes her way to the local ice rink. She stands by the back door and waits until the Zamboni rolls outside and dumps a huge pile of ice shavings onto the pavement.

Then it’s winter all over again and, using shovels, Leon, 24, and her cronies push thin strips of this Zamboni snow toward nearby obstacles—stair rails, curbs, trash cans—and commence doing sick, super dicey skateboard-inspired tricks that have turned Leon’s body into a matrix of once-broken bones. Everything is filmed, and sometimes Leon gets marquee roles.

She’s central to The Uninvited III, a fulllength, all-women snowboard movie slated to drop in November. Usually, though, she shows up in videos produced by her own filming gang, Spotheads, whose members make sneering, joyously hooligan YouTube videos and are united, according to their website, by “a deep passion for filming one another fall down stairs.”

If it sounds like Leon belongs to a cult bent on reconnecting snowboarding to its gnar gnar roots—well, yeah! Duh! She’s got religion. And off the snow, working as an engineer at Burton Snowboards, she’s an evangelist—a kind, big-hearted one. Leon spends many hours each week—sometimes as a Burton employee and sometimes as a volunteer—making gear modifications that help make snowboarding work for disabled athletes.

One of those athletes is Paralympic snowboarder and silver medalist Brittani Coury. After a series of severe ankle injuries, Coury got her right lower leg amputated in 2011. She was able to resume riding, but for years her artificial foot did not jibe very well with her snowboard boot. “There was no ankle stability,” she recalls. Coury couldn’t carve her turns with complete brio, so she was largely shut off from a delight she enjoyed pre-amputation—gliding into the “white room,” which in snowboarding means 60

that glorious space a rider inhabits when she carves into a turn, the powder plumes up around her eyes and she’s able to see nothing else.

In 2019, with the white room in mind, Leon 3D-printed Coury several plasticboot inserts, each one a sort of shin guard. She listened intently as Coury described how her artificial ankle flexed against the prototypes—and how it didn’t.

She kept tweaking until Coury had a snug, form-fitting shin piece against which she could press, carving deeper into her turns. Eventually, Coury attained ankle stability—and the keys to the white room. “I felt like I was floating into a cloud,” says Coury, who will likely compete in this winter’s Paralympics, set to take place in China in March. “I never thought I’d fall in love with snowboarding all over again, but I did.”

For Leon, whose main job involves designing products for Burton’s vast ablebodied customer base, it was just one of a couple dozen triumphs in adaptive innovation. She’s also helped a 15-yearold Australian girl born with dwarfism, Holly Palmer, by shaping her a custom

board—child’s length but stiffer for stability’s sake, and affixed with bindings placed close together to accommodate Palmer’s shorter legs and narrower stance. For Kiana Clay, a Burton pro rider with a paralyzed right arm, Leon rigged her boots with lace-locking clamps—a game changer. “Before I had to clench the lace in my teeth,” says Clay. “It was taxing on my teeth.”

Leon sees her work with adaptive athletes as a natural thing to do, and she downplays the generosity involved. “I love snowboarding so much,” she says. “I love the freedom and confidence it gives me, and we have the technology to help adaptive riders. Why shouldn’t we help them?” She’s following in the footsteps of a legendary Burton engineer, Chris “the Mad Scientist” Doyle, who began crafting gear for adaptive riders in the late ’90s and spurred Burton into an ongoing commitment to people with disabilities.

Last year, in the Italian Alps, several Burton staffers joined a four-day adaptive camp for 40 or so snowboarders from eight countries. A Burton apparel designer, Kyle Smith, had made clothing

JOE KUSUMOTO

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Paralympic silver medalist Brittani Coury can now ride with newfound stability thanks to Leon.

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“I love the freedom and confidence snowboarding gives me, and we have the technology to help adaptive riders. Why shouldn’t we help them?”

At Burton, Leon follows in the footsteps of her mentor, Chris Doyle, who also made adaptive gear.

Leon’s passion for invention dates back to the fourth grade, when she started a design journal that included a solarpowered hovercraft.

modifications for disabled riders. But the company can spend only so much on adaptive gear, which doesn’t currently have a mass-market clientele, and often, when Leon is modifying equipment for disabled athletes, she’s working off the clock, driven only by the desire to help people “dealing,” as she puts it, “with problems we can’t even imagine.”

Leon got her start in the suburbs of Hartford, Connecticut. Her father, Joseph 62

Leon, was a chemical engineer involved in formulating the coating for Oakley sunglasses, and he so infected Maggie with geek zeal that in third grade she wrote a research paper titled “UV Coatings: Polymers, Oligomers and Monomers.” In fourth grade, she started keeping a design journal in which she sketched new inventions, among them a hovercraft fueled by its own solar panels.

She also took athletic cues from her dad.

Joseph was a gonzo skier, and for Christmas in 2005 he bought Maggie and her younger brother, Joey, Kmart snowboards, then let them sculpt quarter pipes in their backyard. Later, the Leon kids took to the slopestyle park in Killington, Vermont, where the family owns a ski house. By the time Maggie was 15, monster rail slides were part of her daily diet. Darkside Snowboards began flowing her free gear. Then she THE RED BULLETIN

“Maggie lives by Burton’s old ethic: Take care of the riders and the business will follow.” and Joey went larger and grittier, helping to found the filming crew that morphed into Spotheads.

Maggie’s dad encouraged her daredevilry, even after snowboarding brought his daughter two collarbone breaks, a broken wrist and two broken arms. But then in 2013, Joseph contracted brain cancer. After he died the following year, at age 64, Leon knew she needed to attend college in snowboarding’s holy land.

At the University of Vermont, situated a stone’s throw from Burton’s HQ, Leon happened to meet Chris Doyle, who each year guided four lucky engineering students through a snowboard-related senior design project. She was a junior then, and the Mad Scientist was immediately impressed. “Both engineering and snowboarding are so male-dominated,” he says, “and here’s this young engineer who’s also a punkass street rider, a wrinkled-T-shirt rider.

I mean, she rides in a hoodie!” Doyle insisted that Leon lead the UVM design team her senior year.

That was 2019, when Leon helped Brittani Coury and other users of a popular prosthetic, the BioDapt Versa Foot 2, perform efficiently while riding in Burton’s Step On bindings. Leon had no previous experience in adaptive sports, but, Doyle says, she’s brought a “real empathy” to the work. Once, Leon studied how pro rider Kiana Clay tied back her long hair while using only one functional arm. Clay loosely knotted the tips to a doorknob and then, with one hand, wriggled a hair band over it. Leon copied the maneuver to tie back her own hair. “It was a reality check,” she says.

“It made me think about what adaptive riders might need.”

As Doyle sees it, Leon’s devotion to individual athletes “harkens back to the early days of our sport. Snowboarding has grown up,” explains the engineer, who left Burton in 2020 after 24 years to design electric-powered airplanes. “It’s a business now. There’s a lot of product briefs. But Maggie lives by Burton’s old ethic: Take care of the riders and the business will follow.”

COURTESY OF BURTON, COURTESY OF MAGGIE LEON

Before Leon rigged her boots, “I had to clench my lace with my teeth,” says pro rider Kiana Clay.

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Leon’s father, Joseph, was a skier and chemical engineer who infected his daughter with geek zeal and encouraged her snowboarding antics.

In Burton’s 44-year-history, Leon is the first engineer ever to double as a sponsored rider. She’s such a unique asset to the company that recently, after marketing herself with a pitch deck, she convinced her bosses to give her long stretches away from the office, so that she can rep for Burton as a rider in snowboard vids.

In that spirit, she slips out of the office one recent afternoon with her dog, Snoopy, a butterscotch-lab mutt, in tow, for a quick sesh at a nearby skateboard ramp. In between rides, clutching her board to her black Torment snowboard magazine T-shirt, she speculates on her limitless future. “I want to be able to film a lot,” she says. “I want to do the best street parts I can. And I want to travel.”

There are, it seems, some primo untapped snowboard spots—perfect rails and hubbas; massive secret walls—in the hinterland of Quebec, and the Spotheads are ready to road trip up there. “I want to do long trips,” Leon says. “I want to post up for a week so we get the shots right.”

She also hopes to step up Burton’s adaptive efforts. “I’d like to be able to dedicate at least half my time to riders with disabilities,” she says. “Everybody in snowboarding keeps talking about how we need diversity in snowboarding, so let’s grow the community of adaptive riders.

We just don’t know how big it can be— there are so many amputees out there who haven’t even been on snow. Let’s remove all their obstacles. Let’s show them the possibilities snowboarding can offer.”

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guide

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Get it. Do it. See it.

THROUGH THE DRINKING GLASS Start making your travel plans for 2022 to visit these Black-owned craft breweries before the next drop. Words CARLY FISHER

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Raise a glass for new breweries from across the country.

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G U I D E

Do it Hippin’ Hops in Atlanta is the first Black-owned craft brewery in Georgia.

C

larence Boston was about 95 percent through the construction of his Stone Mountain Funeral Home in Atlanta when he decided to ditch the plans and turn it into a craft brewery. Boston, a mortician by trade, was well on his way to achieving his lifelong goal: to retire at 50, make wine and smoke cigars.

That said, while winemaking might have come naturally to his grandmother, who would pull muscadines, peaches and plums and make magic with yeast—he was drawn to making the beverage of the people: beer.

“I’m not a beer geek by any means, so I don’t make beer for beer geeks. I make beer for the people. I drink liquor, too,” says Boston, owner and brewer at Hippin’ Hops, the first Black-owned craft brewery in Georgia.

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Stone Mountain will be Boston’s third brewery location, making him the largest proprietor of Blackowned breweries in the country. That’s a modest number when you consider that Boston is a pioneer among Black brewery owners, who make up just 1 percent of more than 8,000 craft breweries, according to a 2019 brewery diversity benchmarking survey from the Brewers Association.

While it seems like you can’t throw a pint glass without hitting a brewery in the U.S., diversity remains a glaring problem in the craft beer industry. Calling Hippin’ Hops an “OG” in the industry is a relative term when you consider that they only opened their doors in April 2021—a testament to the lack of diversity, inclusion and equity that continues to plague the industry.

Naturally, Hippin’ Hops has drawn a lot of attention, catching the eye of Killer Mike and El-P of Run the Jewels.

The hip-hop duo is working with Boston and other Blackowned craft breweries on a new initiative that will benefit Beer Kulture, a nonprofit designed to address diversity, equity and inclusion in the industry. Throughout the rest of the year, the project will release a series of one-off collaboration beers with the goal of creating a stronger tie between the breweries and live music venues that were all impacted due to COVID. Because Black-owned breweries represent only a fraction of the multibillion-

dollar craft beer industry, many contract brewers have faced equity challenges in the race for space, which is being addressed and uplifted with the help of vets like Brooklyn Brewery. One beneficiary is Jon Renthrope, the CEO of Cajun Fire Brewery in New Orleans. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Renthrope started contract brewing in Oregon after he was unable to find entry-level opportunities in his home state.

“We had to start contract brewing in Oregon because we couldn’t find any breweries that would contract with us because of discriminatory practices in the South,” Renthrope says. “We had a

“When a Black brewery is coming up with a beer, we’re all going to let each other know to go support.”

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Breweries

couple companies along the way—Brooklyn Brewery was very receptive, assisting us with carrying out distribution and supply chain management.”

By 2011, he was finally able to take things into his own hands and open Cajun Fire Brewery back in Louisiana.

“We became the first Blackand native-owned business since Prohibition,” he says.

“That put us in a responsible position, but we had to learn the ropes so to speak.”

As contract brewers start opening taprooms, the ongoing challenges for Blackowned businesses like access to capital and land are finally being addressed. Looking ahead to a post-pandemic 2022, a new fleet of Blackowned craft breweries are popping up in Atlanta, Sacramento and New Orleans, as well as in unexpected ancillary markets, like Métier Brewing Company in Woodinville, Washington, and Montclair Brewery in Montclair, New Jersey.

In Memphis, the groundwork is being laid for the future home of the gallerycentric Beale Street Brewery, which is set to open in 2022.

Beale Street’s principal/ curator, Kelvin Kolheim, collaborates with artists like Birdcap, Nosey42, Kenneth Wang and Frank D. Robinson Jr. to create the artwork for his beer releases. Kolheim says Memphis’s craft brew scene is small, allowing him to help create a sense of inclusive community that puts Grind City back on the map.

“Beale Street is like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, which was built on heavy Black music influence— blues, jazz and rock ’n’ roll,” he says. “We don’t own the name Beale Street, so we’re calling it the city’s brewery and trying to make everyone proud.”

Along with Hippin’ Hops, Atlanta is becoming a hot spot thanks to the addition of Atlantucky Brewing by Grammy-nominated hip-hop group Nappy Roots. And Khonso, an eclectic brewery

PROVIDED

Kelvin Kolheim of Beale Street Brewery, which is set to open next year.

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named in honor of an ancient Egyptian brewer, is preparing to join the mix with several brewpubs in the next year.

“I love that Atlanta is the mecca of Black brewing right now,” says beer journalist and craft brew authority Dennis Malcolm Byron, better known as Ale Sharpton. “This is the one time that Black people can work to support each other. It’s our time to shine.

When a Black brewery is coming up with a beer, we’re all going to let each other know to go support. When anyone comes to visit, I love to show it off.”

Miles away in New York City, Julian Riley, the founder and CEO of Harlem Blue, has found a temporary home for his beers on tap at Harlem Hops until he can secure a more permanent space inside the Mink Building—the original location of the oldest pre-Prohibition brewery in Manhattan. Riley, who has been brewing since 2014 and launched his first line of beers in 2016, says this is a historic project that has been years in the making to build upon histories before his own time.

“In the early 1800s, there were breweries in this location at the Mink Building,” Riley says. “Harlem had five to seven breweries before Prohibition, depending on who you ask. There was a story during Prohibition in Harlem that always resonated with me—a brownstone speakeasy that would brew their own basement beer.

Whenever they’d tap their own beer, they’d put a blue light on. If you take out the lawlessness of it all, we wanted a brew at Harlem Blue that would shine our light bright. That’s one of the things Harlem and NYC typifies.”

Back in Atlanta, Boston is letting go of some of his mortuaries to focus solely on finally achieving his lifelong

PINTS WORTH THE PILGRIMAGE Six brick-and-mortar Black-owned taprooms you can visit right now.

HIPPIN’ HOPS BREWERY Atlanta, GA

hippinhopsbrewery.com

18TH STREET BREWERY Indianapolis, IN

18thstreetbrewery.com

OAK PARK BREWING CO. Sacramento, CA opbrewco.com

WEATHERED SOULS BREWING CO. San Antonio, TX

weatheredsouls.beer

HUNTERS POINT BREWERY/SPEAKEASY San Francisco, CA goodbeer.com

METIER BREWING CO. Woodinville, WA metierbrewing.com

Kelvin Kolheim recommends Weathered Souls in San Antonio.

dream. Set to open his third operation since April 2021, Boston is ready to go all in. Although he didn’t inherit his grandmother’s talent for winemaking, his DIY ethos for fermentation has paid off, and there are more big milestones on the way. “We’re also putting in a distillery that will make us the first Black distillery in Atlanta,” he says.

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Do it

These days, Noble tries to keep her training in perspective: “Beating yourself up for not being perfect does not promote longevity.”

TRAIN LIKE A PRO

“IT’S REALLY ABOUT GETTING THE WORK DONE”

Ellen Noble reveals how she trains for the high-speed intensity of cyclocross racing.

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G

rowing up, Ellen Noble tagged along when her parents went to mountain bike races. At age 14, she tried cyclocross. She remembers lining up with 90 other women and crowds cheering for her. She was hooked.

It turned out that Noble has a talent for ’cross. The discipline requires precise bike handling, running stamina and pure speed. In 2017, Noble finished second at the Cyclocross World Championships (U23 Women) and the following year memorably was runner-up to Dutch legend Marianne Vos at a UCI World Cup event in Waterloo, Wisconsin.

But in 2019, Noble was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that

altered her life as an athlete. Now she requires more recovery time between hard workouts. Sometimes she can crush a week of highintensity rides; other times she must dial back her training load.

Noble has learned patience and flexibility out of necessity. “I think with everything I’ve been through, I’ve had to practice so much forgiveness,” she says. “It is really, really hard to be an athlete in a body that doesn’t want to be an athlete.”

Ever resilient, Noble, now 25, is looking forward to racing cyclocross this fall. She also has her sights set on a return to mountain bike racing.

“Both sports are just so passionate and electrifying,” she says.

THE RED BULLETIN

Fitness

O N TH E B I KE

“I’m less number-focused in training now” “The way I train has changed a lot.

My coach calls it Lego blocks, and I try to put the blocks where they make sense. Rather than saying go out and do x-time at y-watts, my coach gives me a route and a description. On Saturday, for example, I had to do a ride with several climbs. He said, ‘Go hard enough on the climbs that you could talk if you have to, but you couldn’t sing.’ Some days I could do those efforts at 230 watts.

But on others, maybe only at 200 watts. It’s more personalized, less number-focused.”

S KI LL S

TRENT SUGG/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

JEN SEE

“I practice skills in isolation at first” “Typically, I train skills every day, but this year is different because I broke my back in April. Once or twice a week, I do cyclocrossspecific skills work. For example, I’ll find a staircase, get off my bike, shoulder it, put the bike down and remount. Then I’ll integrate that into a workout. After I feel confident, I’ll do a whole cross course connecting everything.

People always want to skip to making it all flow without doing the skills in isolation. A big thing is take it easy at first. If you mess up early and injure yourself, you can ruin your season.”

THE RED BULLETIN

R EC OV E RY

“I give myself the opportunity to do things perfectly” “As soon as I finish a ride, I’ll have a protein and carbohydrate shake.

I like blueberry or banana with plain protein or peanut butter and banana with vegan chocolate protein. Sleep consistency is a big indicator of recovery, so I try to go to bed at a consistent time.

I do all the fun extra stuff, too: magnesium soaks, massages, recovery boots. I like to give myself the opportunity to do things perfectly—even if I don’t achieve it. I aim to foam roll after every ride. In reality, I do it four times a week, and that’s awesome.”

STR E N GTH

“I usually work out at the gym barefoot” “I’m just getting back into running now. I also do mobility and stretching most days of the week. I train twice a week in the gym with a strength coach. Right now, I’m doing small exercises to strengthen my back. I’ll do farmers carries or lunges. I’m not doing anything with a squat bar or a squat rack yet. One thing that I have benefitted from is working out barefoot. As a cyclist, I do so little for my feet.

I’m always riding in these super stiff carbon shoes. So I started working out barefoot to remobilize my toes.”

“I TRY TO EAT HEALTHY AROUND MY TRAINING” “I’ve never had someone comment on my body and had it not hurt. I like to think about process-oriented goals, rather than resultsoriented goals. Losing weight is a result-focused goal that doesn’t drive successful process. I try to eat healthy around my training. I have a hard time eating breakfast, so I’ll just have eggs and toast. Once I get on the bike, I’ll eat more. Sometimes I’ll bring waffles, or make Rice Krispies treats. I’ve been using Cocoa Rice Krispies— they’re so good!”

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See it

22 30 October

RED BULL FOAM WRECKERS

to 24 October UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX 2021 After last year’s cancellation, Formula One returns for its only stop in the U.S. in Austin, Texas, at the Circuit of the Americas racetrack. But in 2022, there will be not one but two stops in the U.S., thanks to a big push to bring F1 to Miami. “We have always said that the United States is a key market in which we must develop our business,” said F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali as part of the announcement. Overall, it’s been a great year for Red Bull Racing, with Belgian-Dutch driver Max Verstappen winning seven races and Mexican driver Sergio Perez nabbing one. Will one of them taste victory again in Texas? redbull.com

Through October 31 RED BULL NEYMAR JR.’S FIVE Get in on the action for this fastpaced, five-a-side tournament that’s played all over the world. This year, all the U.S. qualifying events are happening throughout Central and South Florida through the end of October, with the U.S. National Finals happening in November. The rules are simple: Each match lasts 10 minutes, there’s no goalkeeper and whenever a team scores, the other loses a player. You need to outplay them all for a chance to go to Brazil for the World Final.

Participants must be ages 16 to 25.

To sign up, visit redbull.com.

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The anti-surf surf contest has one simple requirement: You must ride a soft-top (foamie) surfboard. The rest is up to you. After several stops across the country where the format varied based on the location and conditions, the tour wraps in Cocoa Beach, Florida. To sign up, visit redbull.com/ foamwreckers.

6

November

BC ONE WORLD FINALS Last year’s BC One World Final was one of many usually live events streamed online, but this year spectators are back, heading to the Polish coastal city of Gdansk to witness the world’s best breakers—including for the first time ever a full lineup of 16 female breakers—represent their countries. Find out who will be crowned the 2021 champions on Red Bull TV. redbull.com

THE RED BULLETIN

Calendar

13

November RED BULL RIO GRANDE GRAVEL

GETTY IMAGES/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, ROBBIE VALLAD/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, RHONAS WISE/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, SEAN BERRY/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, JOE BRADY/RED BULL CONTENT POOL,

Get ready for the hardest 100-mile gravel race on the planet. The brainchild of Red Bull athletes Payson McElveen and Colin Strickland (pictured), the event was created to push the limits of what a gravel bike race can be. The course will test your endurance with its varied surfaces and huge elevation gain—more than 10,000 feet of climbing in a single day. Obviously, it’s not meant for the faint of heart, so if you’re a beginner, please stay at home. This year’s competition takes place at Cibolo Creek Ranch, located about 30 miles south of Marfa, Texas, in the Chinati Mountains.

To register, visit redbull.com

Available now

REEL ROCK

The latest season of this series follows the world’s top climbers, alpinists and mountaineers to the wildest places on Earth, where stories of triumph, failure and redemption unfold.

Follow bouldering powerhouse Nina Williams as she sets her sights on climbing a legendary trio of highballs. Or watch Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell as they chase a coveted speed record on El Capitan in Yosemite.

THE RED BULLETIN

13 to 14 November RED BULL KUMITE

The fighting-game event makes its U.S. debut in Las Vegas, where the best Street Fighter V players will go head-to-head for two days of battles at Caesars Palace. The last Kumite event was in London in May, where 16 SFV players from all over the world were invited. That final round saw Mister Crimson and iDom compete in the longest set of the night, with Mister Crimson applying a deadly mixup to iDom that ultimately defeated his opponent. Expect similar nail-biting battles in Vegas. Two more fighting games will join the Kumite lineup, so stay tuned for a full schedule of events. redbull.com

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Beats’ smallestever buds have outsized acoustic power.

LISTEN HERE!

With streaming digital music the norm, what you listen to your tunes through matters more than ever. Do your ears a favor and plug them into these components and tech.

Words GRANT DAVIS

BEATS STUDIO BUDS

Earbuds have won over millions of converts thanks to their tiny form factor and solid performance. The new tiniest-ever Beats will likely convert millions more. Despite their minuscule size, they feature a two-chamber design for improved acoustics. Active noisecanceling tech blocks out background noise, while the buds automatically play Spatial Audio tracks mixed in Dolby Atmos (see page 77). Different size silicone cups deliver a snug yet comfortable fit. $150; apple.com.

G U I D E

H E A D P H O N E S

AFTERSHOKZ AEROPEX

These water- and sweatproof Bluetooth headphones sit right on your cheekbones and use bone conduction to transfer sound waves via your skull. This leaves your ears open to pick up surrounding sounds—like that car rolling up behind you on your run. The Aeropex unit presents the lightest, most durable AfterShokz headphones to date, with deeper bass tones and less sound leakage than previous models. $160; aftershokz.com.

BOSE FRAMES TEMPO

These visionary glasses check several boxes for outdoor athletes: Lightweight polycarbonate polarized shades with three swappable tint offerings (even Rx) for crystal clear sight in a variety of harsh sunlight conditions; Bose’s OpenAudio water-resistant speaker design pumps tunes straight into your ears while allowing you to hear your surroundings; and Bluetooth, wireless connectivity is good for 8 hours of adventure. From $249; bose.com

BOSE QUIETCOMFORT 45

When used in Quiet Mode, a chip in these Bluetooth noise-canceling headphones neutralizes ambient noise so you can be fully absorbed in your tunes. When you want to hear what’s going on or take a call, just switch to Aware mode and the exterior mic will funnel your voice but not your surroundings into the conversation. When used with a Bose Soundbar connected to a TV, you can use them to listen to shows in total privacy. $330; bose.com

ASTRO GAMING A40 TR HEADSET AND MIXAMP PRO TR

This pair elevates team gaming. Rather than seal off wearers in a cocoon of silence, the A40’s tournament-ready cans allow gamers to hear commands from nearby teammates or coaches.

The MixAmp Pro TR puts many of the wired headset’s volume and sound source functions at a gamer’s fingertips, with dials to control the headset wearer’s voice, Dolby audio effects and incoming audio. $250; astrogaming.com.

SKULLCANDY DIME TRUE WIRELESS EARBUDS

Wireless earbuds are wonders—except when you lose one and have to replace them. A pair of these sweatproof buds can ease that financial pain without sacrificing quality sound. The Bluetooth-enabled buds let you take calls or wear just one so you can keep one ear in the real world. And if you plan to rip it in the terrain park this winter, they should fit under your helmet. $27; skullcandy.com

NAIM AUDIO UNITI ATOM HEADPHONE EDITION

Audiophiles know that a phenomenal pair of headphones is only part of finding listening nirvana—that a powerful, separate amp will make sharp sounds razor sharp and bass notes boom. This headphone amplifier answers that call with Bluetooth connectivity to music files or direct connection to your music streaming service via the Naim app. Works with wired or wireless headphones. $3,290; naimaudio.com

The Bose Frames Tempo are legit technical sunglasses and versatile audio performers.

THE RED BULLETIN

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G U I D E

S P E A K E R S

SYMFONISK

This latest collaboration between home furnishings giant Ikea and Wi-Fi wireless speaker maker Sonos buries a giant flat-panel speaker behind a cloth piece of art. Hang two on opposite walls for immersive stereo sound or pair with a Sonos soundbar connected to the TV for an unobtrusive, low-cost, surround-sound setup.

Even better, Ikea offers a variety of picture screens to best match your room’s decor. $199 each; ikea.com

LG C1 OLED TV

Most giant flat-screen TVs focus on delivering incredible image quality—and assume users will attach a separate speaker system if they want to pump out sound as good as the picture. Not this LG. Right out of the box, this 4K 65-inch TV sounds better than it should— even when showing live, surround-sound sports. For the money, this could be the best sounding 4K OLED TV you can buy. $2,099; lg.com

JBL L52 CLASSIC

ODA SYSTEM

HIFI AURA 2 CONSOLE

JBL PARTYBOX 1000

Powerful, quality speakers don’t have to be the size of refrigerators. These bookshelf speakers are an attractive case in point; they use a retro walnut wood veneer cabinet to enclose a 5.25inch woofer and .75-inch tweeter that combine to blast out a potent range of sound that belies their modest size. Just be sure you don’t place anything fragile on the same shelf as them; they might thump it right off the shelf. $1,000/pair; jblsynthesis.com

The cool people at HiFi Case make a point of putting high-quality Bluetooth-connected speakers into a myriad of retro-cool cases. Take this midcentury gem. It’s a compact, wireless speaker setup with a top just big enough to hold a Bluetooth turntable (such as the Sony on page 76). A 2-channel DSP amp supplies 50 watts of power to the 8-inch woofers and two dome tweeters hidden behind a textile screen. $895; thehificase.com

These may look just like two wood-faced, flat panel, Wi-Fi-connected speakers, but they’re so much more. The handcrafted speakers are paired with a seasonal subscription to Oda’s exclusive live concerts. Each show is fine-tuned to Oda’s speakers and can only be heard via Oda’s proprietary Lighthouse receiver. Because of wood’s organic nature, each set delivers a subtly different listening experience. $399/ speaker pair, $79/season subscription; oda.co

JBL has long made a name for itself with smaller, Bluetooth-enabled 360-degree speakers. Recently they blew up that focus— and turned their volume up to 11—with this massive party speaker. The 1,100 watt, threeway sound tower can roll into the middle of any large space and blow the doors off the room.

Then turn off the lights to see the LED light show as it changes colors based on the beat. $1,200; jbl.com

Long known for making small wireless speakers, JBL has gone big and bold with the Partybox.

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THE RED BULLETIN

The world’s first triphonic speaker delivers innovation in spatial sound.

SYNG CELL ALPHA

This triphonic speaker pumps 360-degree sound out of its Death Star-shaped globe.

The dual force-balanced subwoofers generate deeper bass than you’d think possible in such a small package. The three mid- and trebledrivers, spaced around the speaker, can be programmed to direct sound to the front, rear or wherever. Paired with another Cell Alpha tower, the two will synchronize their sound distribution to optimize the listening experience. $1,799; syngspace.com

G U I D E

C O O L

R E T R O

A N D

H O T

T E C H

SONY PS-LX310BT TURNTABLE

This inventive turntable is a straightforward, affordable and easy-to-use solution to playing vinyl through any Bluetooth-enabled headphones or speaker system with no headaches about obsolete wired connections.

It can spin records at 33 or 45 rpm. And the great price frees up more money to focus on the important stuff, like buying limited-edition reissues and expanding your vintage record collection. $230; electronics.sony.com

The ’80s mixtape is back at home on Retrospekt’s refurbished Walkman.

RETROSPEKT REFURBISHED WALKMAN

The soul and spirit of Gen-X’s old cassette tapes are being rediscovered by a new generation. Thankfully, Retrospekt is on the case, meticulously refurbishing the original Sony Walkman so folks can take a break from the digital universe and listen to those ’80s mixtapes as they were intended—song by song. Includes retro orange headphones. $119; retrospekt.com

RETROSOUND SANTA CRUZ LONG BEACH

Vehicles from the ’80s and ’90s have become hot collectibles, despite their outdated stereos.

Fortunately, RetroSound makes period-correct car stereos packed with Bluetooth connectivity, satellite radio capability and smartphone connections. The Long Beach fits seamlessly into the dash of GM trucks from the late ’80s and early ’90s and includes a three-month Sirius trial. $400; retromanufacturing.com

Sony’s Bluetooth turntable is easy to set up and use, wireless—and costs less than $250.

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THE RED BULLETIN

ORBA BY ARTIPHON SYNTH MIDI CONTROLLER

Music makers no longer need be tied to a keyboard or synthesizer stand thanks to this palm-sized synth gadget. It lets users add drum beats, bass lines and chord loops on the fly. A built-in speaker turns it into a powerful, yet tiny, mobile instrument that can also record on the spot. But you can connect to headphones or external speakers with a USB cable or Bluetooth. $100; antiphon.com

APPLE SPATIAL AUDIO

Buried in Apple’s tech news for 2021 was this awesome gem: Apple Music now streams Dolby Atmos music files as part of its Spatial Audio programming. What’s that? It’s when artists mix and record in 360 degrees, so instead of just hearing in stereo, listeners hear from all around and above. This immersive experience automatically works with AirPods and Beats headphones using an H1 or W1 chip. Free with Apple Music subscription; apple.com

SENA LATITUDE S1 HELMET

Sena Technologies, which cut its teeth making comms systems for motorcycle riders, now brings that tech to skiers and snowboarders.

This helmet features Bluetooth connectivity to a smartphone for tunes and calls, a built-in mic and premium speakers and a Bluetooth intercom that can connect up to four users across roughly 1 km of range. Large controls make it easy to operate with gloves on, plus it’s a certified crash helmet. $119; sena.com

Sena’s Latitude S1 is a crash helmet, comms device and entertainment system all in one.

THE RED BULLETIN

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G U I D E

A N ATO M Y O F G E A R Recordings may now be digital, but sound remains organic. This powerful, innovative amp can ensure that sound waves precisely match how the musicians intended you to hear them.

Words GRANT DAVIS

MCINTOSH MC901 DUAL MONO AMP $17,500 mcintoshlabs.com

DUAL PERSONALITY

The MC901 employs two amps, each with its own power supply. An oldschool 300-watt amp uses 14 vacuum tubes to add warmth to middle and upper-range sounds.

And the 600-watt solidstate amp delivers raw power for subwoofers.

BLUE-LIGHT SPECIAL

McIntosh’s signature blue watt meter shows users how much power each amp is putting out and how crossover adjustments affect the output of each amp.

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COOL O P E R AT O R

The blades at the back of the unit—called Heatsinks—make sure the 600-watt solidstate amplifier doesn’t overheat.

SPEAKER S AV E R

Just because you have 600 watts available doesn’t mean your speaker can handle it. To prevent a blowout, the amp automatically limits its throughput to match your speaker’s capacity.

LEGENDARY POWER

Amps from McIntosh Labs, based in Upstate New York, powered Woodstock in 1969. They’re still powering live music and audiophile setups today.

H E AV Y D U T Y

Constructed of stainless and black painted steel, MC901 is roughly the size of a desktop printer, but it weighs 180 pounds.

THE MC901 HAS BOTH A VACUUMTUBE AMP FOR WARM SOUNDS AND A SOLID-STATE AMP FOR RAW POWER.

GLOBAL TEAM

THE RED BULLETIN WORLDWIDE

The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. The cover of this month’s German edition features the Belgian-Dutch Formula One and Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen.

For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to redbulletin.com.

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Head of The Red Bulletin Alexander Müller-Macheck, Sara Car-Varming (deputy) Editors-in-Chief Andreas Rottenschlager, Andreas Wollinger (deputy) Creative Directors Erik Turek, Kasimir Reimann (deputy) Art Directors Marion Bernert-Thomann, Miles English, Tara Thompson Designers Martina de ­Carvalho-Hutter, Cornelia Gleichweit, Kevin Goll Photo Editors Eva Kerschbaum (manager), Marion Batty (deputy), Susie Forman, Tahira Mirza, Rudi Übelhör Digital Editors Christian Eberle-Abasolo (manager), Marie-Maxime Dricot, Melissa Saenz Gordon, Lisa Hechenberger, Elena Rodriguez Angelina, Benjamin Sullivan Head of Audio Florian Obkircher Special Projects Arkadiusz Piatek Managing Editors Ulrich Corazza, Marion Lukas-Wildmann Publishing Management Ivona Glibusic, Bernhard Schmied, Melissa Stutz, Anna Wilczek Managing Director Stefan Ebner Head of Media Sales & Partnerships Lukas Scharmbacher Head of Co-Publishing Susanne Degn-Pfleger Project Management Co-Publishing, B2B Marketing and Communication Katrin Sigl (manager), Mathias Blaha, Katrin Dollenz, Thomas Hammerschmied, Teresa Kronreif (B2B), Eva Pech, Valentina Pierer, Stefan Portenkirchner (communication), Jennifer Silberschneider Creative Services Verena Schörkhuber-Zöhrer (manager), Sara Wonka, Julia Bianca Zmek, Edith Zöchling-Marchart Commercial Management Co-Publishing Alexandra Ita Editorial Co-Publishing Raffael Fritz (manager), Gundi Bittermann, Mariella Reithoffer, Wolfgang Wieser Executive Creative Director Markus Kietreiber Senior Manager Creative Elisabeth Kopanz Art Direction Commercial and Co-Publishing Peter Knehtl (manager), Erwin Edtmayer, Simone Fischer, Martina Maier, Andreea Parvu, Carina Schaittenberger, Alexandra Schendl, Julia Schinzel, Florian Solly, Dominik Uhl, Sophie Weidinger, Stephan Zenz Subscriptions and Distribution Peter Schiffer (manager), Marija Althajm, Nicole Glaser, Victoria Schwärzler, Yoldaş Yarar Advertising Manuela Brandstätter, Monika Spitaler Production Veronika Felder (manager), Friedrich Indich, Walter O. Sádaba, Sabine Wessig Repro Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Claudia Heis, Nenad Isailović, Sandra Maiko Krutz, Josef Mühlbacher Finance Mariia Gerutska (manager), Klaus Pleninger MIT Christoph Kocsisek, Michael Thaler Operations Alice Gafitanu, Melanie Grasserbauer, Alexander Peham, Thomas Platzer Assistant to General Management Sandra Artacker Project Management Dominik Debriacher, Gabriela-Teresa Humer Editor and CEO Andreas Kornhofer Editorial office Am Grünen Prater 3, A-1020 Vienna Phone +43 1 90221-0 Web redbulletin.com Published by Red Bull Media House GmbH, Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11–15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 Executive Directors Dkfm. Dietrich Mateschitz, Dietmar Otti, Christopher Reindl, Marcus Weber

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THE RED BULLETIN France, ISSN 2225-4722 Editor Pierre-Henri Camy Country Coordinator Christine Vitel Country Project M ­ anagement Alexis Bulteau

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THE RED BULLETIN United Kingdom, ISSN 2308-5894 Editor Tom Guise Associate Editor Lou Boyd Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Publishing Management Ollie Stretton Advertising Sales Mark Bishop, mark.bishop@redbull.com Fabienne Peters, fabienne.peters@redbull.com

THE RED BULLETIN

Action highlight

Breaking loose

Simply scan this QR code to check out our highly visual history of breaking.

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The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on November 16.

THE RED BULLETIN

GETTY IMAGES

A crew of Brooklyn-based breakers spin and pose with a wall of graffiti behind them. If you dig this—as well as our Martha Cooper photo portfolio and the profile of elite breaker Logistx in this issue—you can dig even deeper into the history of the culture with an interactive digital package on the history of breaking within hip-hop culture. The story—titled “From the Streets to the Olympics”—traces breaking from its birth in the Bronx in the early ’70s, charting its growth as an art form and competitive sport, culminating in breaking’s inclusion in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Put more time back in your day with Walmart curbside pickup — our pitstop for all your needs.

Like the world record holding Red Bull Racing Pitstop Crew, speed is everything at Walmart.

kia.com

2022 KIA SORENTO. EVERY STORY STARTS SOMEWHERE. THIS ONE STARTS WITH 281 HORSES.

Kia is an official sponsor of Red Bull Rampage

The world’s greatest stories won’t just show up at your doorstep. You have to go find them. You need tools that are capable, like 281 horsepower and all-wheel drive. And tools that are functional, like the Blind-Spot View Monitor and 10.25" touch screen with Surround View Monitor. So, you can find all the stories that are waiting out there, no matter how unexpected. The 2022 Sorento X-Line.

The World’s First Storytelling Machine.

2022 Sorento SX-Prestige with X-Line AWD Package shown. Some features may vary.