Vans South Africa is excited to release Briberies – the latest video from their South African Skateboarding team. Briberies focuses on three friends who grew up skateboarding together, who persevered through many obstacles to become some of the most talented and hardest working skateboarders in South Africa right now Street skating in South Africa is not an easy task – rough spots, crime and life in general makes it challenging to get footage, let alone 13 minutes of it.
Featuring Ethan Cairns, Alex Williams, Devandre Galant, Thalente Biyela, Tkay Modise, Kyle Kheswa, Joubert van Staden, Trae Rice, Yann Horowitz, Melissa Williams, Chenai Gwandure and Daniel Miltiadou.
So, ladies and gentlemen, if you have not already had the pleasure then allow us to introduce you to George Zuko – a candidate for raddest human in the world today. As with Sandy Alibo in Ghana, George has been a talismanic figure in the development of skateboard culture here in Kenya.
How about this: George is a skater who helps run skate camps at an educational orphanage where the country’s first skatepark resides. Think about that for a moment. Children sleeping on the streets are by no means uncommon in Nairobi, and George introduced us to two young rippers who once slept right by the local skate spot – and started skating as a result. With George’s introduction of skating into their lives, The Keedz (‘the pair’) are off the streets, enrolled in school, and ripping.
Samuel Mwangi and Ezra Nyongesa – everyone calls him Balo, though – proved constant companions for Jaakko Ojanen, Chenai Gwandure, Yann Horowitz and Jackson Pilz as our joy bus spent a week rolling around with the skate scene of Nairobi. Sam even shot Balo’s front board photo from this feature on his first try with a camera. Fast learner!
The Shangilia association which runs the educational orphanage space where the radiant skatepark resides work with hundreds of such children every day. Watch Patrik Wallner’s superb documentary on Jaakko and friends’ skate mission with the local rippers of Nairobi above.
Skate scenes in their infancy often have a guiding light, a champion and pioneer who evangelises and develops and agitates at the absolute grassroots level, to try and make things happen for the new people skating hooks every day once they have access to it.
This is happening all over the world right now, and it is the purest version of skateboarding’s promise. As a counterpoint to all the upriver skate activity going on in the world today, wonderful though that doubtless is, shining a light not just on these nascent scenes but the builders of those scenes is a dollop of wholesome radness nobody can have too much of.
So, when South African skate evangelis Yann Horowitz, Chenai Gwandure and Jackson Pilz suggested continuing Red Bull’s drop- ins with the diverse skate scenes throughout the continent by heading to Ghana to meet Sandy Alibo and the Accra skaters, Jaakko Ojanen leapt at the once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring his magic feet to the party. What was created proved to be a pivotal skate happening for the Accra scene; one which will never be forgotten by anyone involved. Absorb Patrik Wallner’s awesome film from the tour up top there, and roll back around in a week’s time as the squad roll into Nairobi, Kenya!
