All The Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip Hop and Skateboarding

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2021 REVIEW! Skateboarding has always had a connection to the Hip Hop community. Though, for most of its history, skateboarding has been defined by long-haired boys from the Valley in California. In fact, you can't even think of skating without images of Tony Hawk on a half-pipe ramp. But for young Black kids from the hood who couldn't play basketball and weren't in a gang, skateboarding was a refuge. It was one for me, as well as other poor kids who needed an alternative outlet beyond the rising hip hop underground music scene. Kids like me helped merge the two cultures into one.