📝 Words by Frozen in Carbonite
As you might have read on this platform, travel is huge these days. Along these lines, this summer traveled hard as fuck. I drove to Myrtle Beach not once, but twice – shoutout Kenny Powers. I vibed out at the Outer Banks for a week. And most importantly, I bookended summer 2024 with two trips to New York [Fuckin’] City. The second, you can read about here. The first one was my annual sober-versary trip. When booking the hotel, I made sure to get a place with one of those rooftop pools. I mean, you never know – east coast weather is crazy [like]; in early April, it could be 85 or a blizzard might attack the city.
There is no middle ground.
However, rain dominated the forecast for most of my trip, leading to me pretty much walking around in the rain, which was kinda tight. At one point, after the rain dissipated, the wind blowing down Manhattan’s concrete canyons created what I imagine to be gale-force winds that almost blew me over and/or away.
Along those lines, here are six of the songs and video parts that the winds of fate blew our way in Summer 2024.
Kendrick Lamar — “Not Like Us” x Antonio Durao’s Nike SB Quickstrike Part
[First part]
Popping out and showing out is an evergreen sentiment, for sure. However, I still backed Drake through the whole saga. There’s nothing more the masses like to do than dogpile on someone whom they perceive to be up, and Drake was up for a minute. Consequently, especially on Twitter, the discourse transformed into a big dogpile. I owe the guy some loyalty for his decade-plus of service to the “Song of the Summer” industrial complex.
ANYWAY, “Not Like Us” catapulted Kendrick into the S-Tier of celebs with your Taylor Swifts and what have you. Along the same lines, everyone knew Antonio ripped, but the flat-out shocking nature of most of the tricks in this part launched him into the realm of the street skating elite – your Lucas Puigs and what have you. In addition, just like Kendrick imbues his lyrics with all manner of double (quadruple?) entendrés, Durao adds seemingly impossible one-foot/half-flip combos to what would otherwise be stock tricks, inventing a new vocabulary of sorts.
Tommy Richman – “Million Dollar Baby” x Yoon Sun Shin’s “CMON YO” Part
[Part begins @ 6:15]
VIRGINIA, BABY!
But seriously, I knew this song was good when Joe Budden expressed his deep disdain for it. [FULL DISCLOSURE: I fuck with The Joe Budden Podcast big time.] I’ll tell you what – it ain’t east to do six-to-eight (or what have you) hours of podcasting a week with no notes. Completely off the cuff! Maybe they have a whiteboard with notes off to the side or some shit.
ANYWAY, this Tommy Richman is from Woodbridge, home to a big-ass concrete park. I’ve never skated it, because why would you stop there when you’re 15 minutes (depending on traffic, naturally) from Pulaski and all it entails. Another DMV entity, Gang International, dropped a promo-length video entitled “CMON YO,” whose ender featured a last part from one Yoon Sun Shin, who concludes the project by attacking cobblestone-run-upped Baltimore spots with a trick selection that includes tailslide kickflp outs, backside nosebluntslides, and the seldom-seen frontside heelflip over something. Richman’s future remains to be seen, but G.I. is definitely not a one-hit wonder.
Post Malone f/ Morgan Wallen – “I Had Some Help” x Jason Nam’s Quasi “Psychic Fracture” Part
[Part begins @ 3:26]
I’ve been doing this series for so long that I’ve forgotten 90% of the songs/parts. Along those lines, I was sure that “White Iverson” was in there somewhere. After some rudimentary internet research, I discovered that “Iverson” dropped in mid-August 2015, which would mean it probably came to prominence sometime in the fourth quarter of that year. However, I spent like an hour on additional research to determine if I wrote a “SOTS x VPOTS” feature in 2015 at all — it could have been during the bygone Ride Channel era.
ANYWAY, it’s 2024 and Post Malone works as a country singer. This past summer, “I Had Some Help” dominated every roadside bar and juke joint in the state of Virginia. Along the same lines, in Quasi’s most recent internet edit, Jason Nam hits spots (including my kids’ elementary school) in all three sectors of the DMV. In addition, Malone’s new genre pairs well with Quasi’s brand of Americana.
P.S. Why hasn’t that grey marble hubba been in more vids?
Sabrina Carpenter — “Espresso” x Jacopo Carozzi’s “JACOPO” Part
After some really rudimentary internet research (skimmed her Wikipedia page), I have determined two things about Sabrina Carpenter: A) she’s short, and B) she’s one of them Disney kids. And like everyone knows, if you wanna be a Disney kid, you gotta be a triple threat: singin’, dancin’, and actin’. After watching this “JACOPO” part a couple times, I have determined two things about Jacopo Carozzi:
A) He’s a triple threat: ditch, bowl, ledge.
B) The kid slices and dices marble like that other Italian guy with the statues n’ shit. One of these skate prodigies that can flip in and/or out of literally everything. This part represents The State of Ledge Skating™ in 2024.
Tinashe – “Nasty” x Vince Palmer’s Rat Ratz “Who Said What?” Part
Ten years after her first appearance in this series, Tinashe is back with the song that dominated the early summer in audio and meme form. Four years after his first appearance in the early Rat Ratz projects, Vince Palmer is all grown up, taking the Trilogy playbook and adding a few flip-outs, as per the current generation of skate prodigies. However, the question remains: How the fuck does he do those boned out switch flips and heelflips?
Charli XCX “365” x Heitor Da Silva’s “HEJTOR” Part
What’s the deal with all this black text on a “poison green” background? Is Heitor brat?
Is he the Tiësto of skating or some shit? The David Guetta?
Maybe these types of comparisons don’t fit and he occupies in his own fuckin’ lane: a gentleman of leisure who hits the dopest places (Sicily, London, NYC A.K.A. DA GREATEST CITY IN DA WORLD, Copenhagen, etc.), stacks, then dips. Drops immaculate vibes every summer. This offering, promoting the “skate” version of the 80s Pro Shell basketball shoe, builds on last summer’s “Vice Versa Love,” but with a more kinetic, focused pace.
“365” fits this vibe perfectly, and pairs well with Heitor’s kinda sketchy, kinda dancy, “evolutionary Quim Cardona” style. In addition, it’s probably the closest to the original song of a part in the history of this series.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Real Skateboards’ “Roll Call,” Ben Lawrie “No Place Like Home” edit for Hoddle Skateboards, Ben Gore “2nd Vision” part, J.P. Souza “Tropical Flavor,” and Tanner Burzinski “The Professional” part.
Love this shit