Dreamer — An Interview With Jahmal Williams

Intro & Interview by Adam Abada
Collages by Requiem For A Screen
Original Photos by Cole Giordano & Pep Kim

Jahmal Williams is as humble as he is effortlessly flowing on his skateboard. He is someone with thoughtful personal aesthetics that you could never mistake for pretension. That translates into his effects on skate culture — one that he has been a part of for many decades now. A painter, sculptor and connoisseur of 180 nosegrinds, Jahmal is also a father and runs his own cult favorite brand, Hopps.

“Keep It Moving” isn’t only Hopps’ slogan, but a philosophy that keeps Jahmal relevant and creating great work. With a mind and personal history that exemplifies striking while the iron is hot, Jahmal’s new mural and accompanying short is the type of pandemic-era work that reveals how constantly evolving he is.

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Flexfits

Thrasher has been posting some gems before clocking out for the weekend as of late. “Down Bad” is a Philly video by Harry Bergenfield. Includes the second Kris Brown opener part in two weeks, a lot of Jahmir Brown footy, and a wild ender section from Brian O’Dwyer. Front feeble Zuccotti is nuts.

“It makes me wonder how I’d have turned out if I’d only skated with people my own age? I don’t know if I’d have the same discipline.” Farran did a #longform interview with Justin Henry for the Slam City Skates blog.

Last week’s repeat viewing award winner: Mark Del Negro’s new part for Hopps.

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Hard To Choose One

Summer 2020 QS goods are arriving at skate shops now. Product should be in all of our accounts in the U.S, Canada, Japan and South Korea by the end of this week at the latest, but Europe and Australia will be a lil’ late. Check your Australian and European locals in early June. Please support shops via their webstores or if any are doing curbside pick-ups for product while they remain closed in some areas. Our webstore will relaunch with summer goods on this Friday, May 22 @ 10 A.M. E.S.T. Top spread via Prov Tokyo.

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Groeth Is Coming

Pyramid Ledges extension challenge summer 2k19.

Sign + share the petition to keep synthetic turf off the Tompkins flat.

The Stingwater video is on the way. Pretty excited because Daniel has a way of capturing Antonio’s magic unlike anyone else.

Obvs no shade to anyone else out there pointing lenses at Antonio intended! “Vue” by Stephen Spilker is a rad L.A. montage that also has a good bit of clips from 2018’s GRoER of the Year. Shout out to everyone out there creating plain, old fashioned montages. Should probably start working on a QS one right about now…

Gang Corp put out a sick five-minute summer edit. (The one line into the parking garage got me thinking about if anyone would ever do an all-parking garage montage, kinda how there was the all-subway one from Spirit Quest. So many insane spots in those.)

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Deep Rich Sepia Tone

Via Hopps on IG

We have a small run of new hoodies, and we found a box of the old “Vacation” tees in the warehouse. Everything is over in the shop.

Someone mashed up five minutes of Tyshawn loosies and b-sides.

Brad Cromer skates New York with the enthusiasm of someone who hasn’t been burned out by seven thousand consecutive weekends of “where do we skate?” / “that spot sucks” conversations. Also, that kickflip back smith at Man Ledges was ~beautiful~.

“There’s so much bullshit in that fuckin’ thing.” Bobshirt interviews Aaron Meza for an hour and twenty minutes to find out what parts of FTC videos are lifted from Scorsese and Godard. (Also kinda crazy how pretty much anybody in the “content business” has been inspired by the Ego Trip Rap Lists book.)

And editing an artsy clip to movie quotes from probably the most quoted New York movie in existence is a bit too, um, on the nose, but footage of Appleyard skating the city was a nice surprise.

Mike Munzenrider explores the trajectory of how skating in shorts became an industry standard practice.

“Born of those spastic curb cauldrons in the early 1990s, the crooked grind to backside lipslide lay low for a certain number of Earth years until Bastien Salabanzi donked one down a semi-legit handrail in Sorry, drawing immediate reprisals in the shallow backwaters of the early message-board days and inspiring several other related atrocities over the years to come. It was a time of war, girth and widespread musical pirating.” Can’t say I was too worried about the crooked grind to back lip feeling it its been neglected these past ~15 years, but Boil the Ocean felt otherwise.

The perpetually making-clips-that-look-like-no-one-else’s collective of Russia’s Absurd Skateboards went to the seaside city of Sochi in the offseason to search for spots.

Skate camps, self celebrations, and reeaallyy long manuals — Chromeball runs down a history of nineties skate video clichés for TWS.

Of course Tompkins is on a list of the the 69 best places in New York, for better or worse.

Posed another hypothetical “how long until” over on the ol’ Twitter now that T.J. got the 33rd Street subway station ollie out of the way: how long until / is it actually possible for someone to ollie the eight-flat-eight at the Met?

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: About due time we got Luca on here.

Quote of the Week
Observant Gentleman: “I think you’re not supposed to order seafood on Sundays or something.”
Jesse Alba: “Yeah, you’re not supposed to skate on private property either, and here we are.”

Stumbled on this two-hour mix of New York jams that appeared on DJ Screw mixtapes, which made me never want to listen to some of these songs at regular speed ever again. The Rakim one is insane, and never would have thought that Tribe screwed would sound so good.