Lil Wayne Has Doubled Down on Skateboarding on an Impressive Level
Image taken from "Sorry For The Sk8" video

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Lil Wayne Has Doubled Down on Skateboarding on an Impressive Level

Weezy F baby and the F is for riding fakie.
Ryan Bassil
London, GB

When Lil Wayne came out of Rikers in 2010, he announced he would be taking up skateboarding. Already religious (peep his jail memoir Gone Til’ November and you’ll see he prays every day), popping ollies and face-planting his diamond encrusted grill into concrete clearly seemed like the next best step toward salvation. And so, Wayne prayed at the altar of skateboarding.

Of course, several fans initially scoffed at Weezy’s new vocation. Extreme sports aren’t usually take up by men of Wayne’s age (back then he was 28, now he’s 32); nor is skateboarding synonymous with world-famous celebrities who are celebrated for anything other than skateboarding. Still: he carried on, smacking wood onto coping metal, dedicated to the cause, telling Rolling Stone in 2012 that “Rap’s taken a backseat to skateboarding”.

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If we look to history, Wayne is the first of his kind. Do we recall Leonardo DiCaprio building a halfpipe in his backyard, Jennifer Lopez waxing up a curb for a sugar-sweet grind, or Ryan Gosling smashing it down a five step-stair-set? No, we do not. These things do not exist. Lil Wayne is a maverick. He is to celebrities taking on skateboarding what Bob Dylan was to picking up the electric guitar (and very likely the proponent to that brief phase when Bieber started skating around). Regardless, the big question always remained: was Wayne any good?

Not so long ago, we had those answers. Though there is plenty of footage of him hanging out in skateparks (see: Chance the Rapper’s “No Problem” video); countless articles documenting his skate trips, and the people who he pays to go on them (VICE published one here); and a few clips here and there of him smashing his ass on the floor (click, click and click), videos of Wayne busting trick after trick after trick are few and far between. A month or so ago, however, he released a video called "Sorry For The Sk8" (a pun on his mixtape series, Sorry 4 The Wait). So, in his own words: “Did you wonder what the f**k Lil Wayne has been doing on a skateboard. Here it is!”

The seven-minute clip also featured from Wayne called “Hercules”. It’s pretty good. But the wildest thing about Weezy's skateboarding adventures? It’s long been documented that Wayne has a skate-park in his house, and another on the rooftop. In the flesh though, it looks crazy dangerous? Like, the mini-ramp in the screenshot below seems to level off with a several story death-drop toward the floor?

Either way, damn, my guy. I don’t even want Tha Carter V anymore. I want Lil Wayne in the X Games. I want him balling down that fucking huge several thousand feet ramp and doing a Danny Way across the hench gap of the Mega Ramp. And Wayne wants that too. And he’s reaching for it, and that’s why this world is blessed, and this man is a lifelong inspiration that contains multitudes.

You can find Ryan on Twitter.