8:30PM
Hometown: Delray Beach, FL
Stance: Regular
Born: 1995
Sponsors: FA, Supreme, Vans
NR
When you started skating at the age of seven was there a magazine that really pulled you in?
BD
Definitely Thrasher01. It was 'the' magazine growing up, I was super into it. My mom thought I was too young so she got me subscriptions to Skateboard Mag02, Transworld03, and The Skateboarder. I miss waiting for them to arrive in the mail, with my name on a little sticky. I would read them over and over and over again until the next month, until they just fell apart.
The first magazine I ever got was the Christmas edition of Transworld. On the cover was , , and —all lined up. Every skater had an interview with their set-up, and inside the issue was basically every product in skateboarding. I knew everything in it. Top to bottom. I wanted to know more than just tricks. Even the small things were cool; the shoes were super bulky, like now.
NR
Were there skaters that you saw that who you.. not like copied or emulated their set-up, but really gravitated towards?
BD
Not really the set-up, more so the human being. I feel like even though there's guys not girls on the cover, I took what seemed close to me from each of them. Like, Andrew Reynolds is like tall. I was like, "Oh, if he could do that, I can do that". You know? I'm tall. Stevie Williams is black, I'm black. young, I'm young.
I would just take different things from them, and be like, "Oh, I have all these attributes, maybe I can execute them to myself." I'm a woman, but whatever. I'll just take what these guys have, and try to put it into my skating.
NR
It's a bit of a cliche at this point, but the big headline is you are the first and only woman skater signed to Supreme, what does that mean to you?
BD
It's sick. I get that question a lot now. I just like skating, and I was into skating and that's how I ended up here.
I really don't have an answer for that question. I feel great and honored. I have a responsibility to showcase real skateboarding, and not just skateboarding now, but timeless skateboarding.
NR
The timeless thing—skate magazines are such an iconic staple. With Transworld and other legendary skate magazines folding recently, what role do skate magazines have in your version of skating today?
BD
We need print because when the Internet's gone you really have nothing. They're part of my culture and part of what I use. If I see a little kid who's sick at the park, or if I'm traveling somewhere, I won't be like, "yo, go on this Instagram." I take out my backpack, and will be like, "Yo, read this every day, and just take it all in." So, sometimes I'll get two copies of the mag, and give one away to a kid and be like, "this is it."
I try my best to not steer them towards the Internet. More like, this is skateboarding in a magazine. Yeah. But now skateboarding is getting ‘Instagram’, with handles in the corner and it's like, fuck off.
My first experience with skateboarding was a magazine, not on YouTube or something. Which is not bad. It's just, I'd rather have a kid's skateboarding experience be authentic and real, and not Jordan's and camo pants. That's not skateboarding, to me at least.
NR
There’s this huge obsession with skateboarding right now and it almost seems part of this larger cultural resurgence from the 90's and early 2000's. What's your take on all that attention?
BD
I mean it's cool, it's great. It's well-deserved. Skateboarding is really hard. You can pick up a basketball for the first time and make a shot within the first 10 minutes. But in order to do an ollie for the first 10 minutes? I've never seen it done.
People need to have shine, but I was here before it, here during it, and I'll be here after it. Everything has its time. I feel people should just take advantage of the moment, but showcase and do it our way. Don't fall into their way so much. Like, the fashion industry wants a little piece of it. I'll have some shoots for some fashion stuff; like “Oh put this skateboard over your head", and I'll tell them straight up, "don't ever ask the skateboarder to do that. No skateboarder ever puts their skateboard...That thing is so dirty!” So, educate them, and don't let them lead you, lead them.
NR
Were you signed with Supreme before you moved here, or did that happen once you were in New york?
BD
Well, I've been on Supreme since 2013—getting stuff from them since then, but I guess nobody cared. Now they do, I don't know. So now it matters? But, I've been on Supreme since I lived in Florida. I think once the Wall Street Journal published that story, it became a thing. After that people were asking me a bunch. Once I tell them, I've been riding for them since 2013, they're like, ‘Oh, Yeah?’
And, as I grow up, I slowly get it, you know?
Its funny you can be just doing something and the same thing for so long, and then for some reason one moment it just clicks. I guess it's kind of like skating, you could be trying this trick forever and then one day, it just works out and you're like, oh, that's how you do it. It's like a tre-flip. I sucked at them growing up and then one day I just went, oh okay and that's it! So I take it like that. I'm not worried about it.
NR
Are there certain times in your life where books have been really essential? You might have not known its value but it really helped you come do a different way of thinking that led you… Towards something else or through a hard time?
BD
Earl Nightingale's stuff. I feel like reading his books04 is why I'm sitting here talking to you about skateboarding and reading. He really changed my thinking and why I even challenge myself to get to this point in my life—doing interviews, skating for a living, and traveling. The things he says are crucial to the way I think now.
It’s a lot about your attitude in life, that's really the most important thing. That’s why you're at where you're at, and you are what you think about all day long. Our minds are what separates us from any other thing. We have a really powerful mind in the sense of what we think comes about and if you have the right attitude, you can manifest it... If you're happy and you're looking up, someone can be like, "Yo" but if you're sad and looking down, the opportunities pass by.
Even if you're having a bad day, just try to have a good outlook on life, because you never know. Not like you're expecting something, no one owes anything. But if you're just happy, it's just good for you and for maybe a situation you are in. And even if it's not true, or people that go "oh that's wishful thinking" I say, "Well, I'd rather have a good attitude anyway." It's better for my health. So you win either way being positive.
NR
What obsessions would be revealed through your library or books you collect?
BD
I'm really into self-help. It sounds so bad… I'm just really into it. When I graduated high school, my mom gave me Man's Search for Meaning05 by Viktor Frankl. I realized reading that book changed my thinking completely and the way I do things. The book is like a self help book, but not. It’s not telling you what to do, but he’s helping you through his experiences. For example, he had to use his mind to get out of the space that he was in which was the concentration camp. Nothing in your life can be as severe as that. So, if he can make it through that than you can make it through the smallest things.
Every time im in a rut i read it again. It’s one of my favorite books, this is my 5th time reading it. I’ll read it every year to start of the year, because theres so much content, or sometimes you forget, or you are in a different space in life and pick up something new. I like his writing and love World War 2 books, and I knew in middle school it was mandatory to read. Looking back I'm like, Oh, it was supposed to help me in that time, but I didn't read it. I re-read Catcher in the Rye06, and I was like, "dammit, why didn't I read this in fifth grade."
Then I got super into Elie Wiesel, who wrote Night07, and I got into Osho. In my first year of college I read the book Fear08, and that really helped me because I'm always fearful about dying – who isn't – or fearful of trying new things. And that book really opened my mind to be like... That's one thing that's guaranteed in life is death. So just make the best of it as you can and just try it, enjoy it.
NR
On your Instagram you have your name in Hebrew—
BD
It's weird. Growing up I watched the Prince of Egypt, and I was like, wow. It just moved me. I thought it was so sick. As I grew up I was really interested in learning about the culture, and the Holocaust etc. When I went to college and I took a Jewish American literature class, the stories in there are so great. Like The Bread Givers09. It was my minor before I dropped out. I feel really bad because I worked so hard for those two years and then I took a break from school so I could skate.
NR
Are there any parallels between Hebrew and skateboarding that you found?
BD
Oh, for sure. Definitely. Both are difficult, but both are rewarding at the end, you know in terms of like learning the language. It takes patience. I guess that's why I got into it. It reminded me of skateboarding. What I like about skateboarding, and what I like about Hebrew, is if I practice I see progress.
NR
And you studied film as well?
BD
I love film from the 1920's. I took a class like that. For a moment I took out a book on long take, so I watched True Detective. There's a six minute long take with Matthew McConaughey, it's amazing. Just type it in on YouTube. I became obsessed with it, I want to do a long take in skateboarding.
NR
What other artists, musicians, or outside influences inspire your skating, or fuel your interest in it?
BD
I love Norman Rockwell. I really like surfing right now, which is not music or art but I like watching surfing with no sound. Just watching it, that inspires my skating. That's how I learned back threes, you know John Florence? He's a surfer, there's a video of him just doing back threes in the water, back 360 ollie. And I was just like, if he can do that in water I could do that on flat ground.
Music-wise I was really into rock and alternative music. People were like you've got to get with the times, nobody listens to this anymore. So I've been listening to rap for the last two years, and I was like, I don't really like this music. It's catchy, it's cool, and Drake is sick but, I don't really like it. So I'm back on what I used to listen to in middle school; Fallout Boy, All American Rejects... That music makes me psyched. It makes me happy. And I also love 80's pop music; Soft Cell and Duran Duran. It makes me feel.
Rapping, is just numbing. I'm not stoked, I'm not sad, I'm just content. That's a weird place to be. I want to be psyched, or feel sad if I'm listening to something. That's how you get inspired. Like, when I want to jump down something I'll put on Black Flag. But when I want to cruise the city, Reggae is super sick. If you're already awake at 7:00 AM on a Saturday, go put your headphones on in the Lower East Side and skate to some Reggae. It's one of my favorite things to do. No one is there—barely any cars. To the point where it's 10:00 AM and nobody is out, and I’m like, this shit is weird I'm going home.
NR
At home are you a bookshelves or stacks type of person?
BD
Oh? A typical stack. Because the aesthetic I grew up watching and wanting was movies stacked up. So I have a section of a lot of lined up where it's five rows of Thrasher in the front by color; blue, red, green because they all have a color every month, but the color repeats itself, it looks sick. TransWorld also has its pile, and then you have i-D10, Sneeze, Vogue, Legend, and like it’s conceited but also stuff I've been in and other random stuff that's just there.
I have my coffee table at home, which is not a coffee table it's literally a box, and that is just art books that people can look at. I have and photo book11. I'm trying to make a photo book now, so right now my table is for working on my photo book. And then on my far shelf is my important books, my film books, my Hebrew books, self-help and all my other screenwriting books, they're all there in order. Half of it I probably don't end up reading, but yeah.
NR
You were saying that you carry around books with you when you skate, how long do you usually have one book in your bag?
BD
A month. So, that was a goal this year to read a book a month.
This year, I didn't do self-help, because sometimes you can overdo it. Like, kill it. So, I'm trying and read different stuff; it's been James Franco’s Rumble Fish12, Actors Anonymous13, the month before that... Oh, it was a sociology book, The Working Poor14.
NR
Just generally with skateboarding how did you first find out about the O.G.s?
BD
Growing up, I typed in skateboarding in YouTube or whatever. Then I found these kids from a town above me, West Palm Beach. I liked the way he skated and in the comments I remember this kid writing, "this dude shouldn't be like Jason Dill." And in my head like I took it as, if this kid is cool, the guy that he's trying to be like is probably way cooler, you know what I mean? Because he's pro or whatever. So I typed in his name and a whole bunch of videos came up.
I clicked on it. It's like Dill in New York, "Oh, like New York. If he's skating there, there must be more people." Then I found out his favorite skaters are , ... And now I'm going backwards to find out what videos he watched to get to those guys? '93, '92, '94, '95, that era. Then I got to , or ... All these older skateboard videos, and it inspired me because I was like, "if their board is like this big, and their wheels are this small and If they can do that, than I could do it better because I have newer shit."
The videos I was watching back home people were wearing shorts and... It was just not my style, but like Kareem Campbell with the baggy jeans and Vans with the half calfs, I was like "this dude's sick. I want to skate like that. So yeah, I just went backwards to see... kind of like a book, what's in their head? What did he watch to have him skate like that? So, or old . That's how I got into the kind of skating I'm into.
NR
And then did that in turn inform magazines you sought out?
BD
Yeah, so while in that process my favorite skaters became like , , and all these skaters who were in older magazines. There was a skate shop near my house and the dude had crates of old magazines and, I'd be like, all right, I'm going to come here every day and go through all these. There was just so many, they're like those black crates, just stacked and stacked, mostly Big Brother15. And we'd go in there, and not buy anything, "Yo. What's up," and go straight to the back to just go through all the magazines, read them and see what they're about.
NR
What are some of your favorite skate spots in New York?
BD
I pretty much came to New York for Tompkins. Lately, it's this spot Monument, right off the bike lane when you bomb the Williamsburg bridge going into Brooklyn.
Once you skate it, it's a spot now. It's kind of like graffiti, someone sees you do something there, 'I can do something there too'. And then it'll become a spot, or if you see someone is riding there, 'I could get up there too', and you're all over it as well, it's the exact same thing.
The skate park is like the whole world you know, and we just film it.
NR
Thinking about your career as a book. Are you someone who would want it in volumes, or a big anthology at the end that reveals everything?
BD
I would want a timeline. I don't know if you saw book16, the photographer shot him from the age of fifteen to twenty-one, and it's literally him growing. Like, that's intense. I'd want more of like five to seven when I started skating, and then eight to fourteen. More events than like a timeline. But it's kind of sick to see him, if you flip through it backward, you can watch him age…
NR
Being completely in it. You're totally obsessed with skateboarding, that seems like a lot of your time.
BD
Now I'm trying to balance everything out. Being a little bit older, I realize you're not on it every day. So it’s always nice if you feel like the day is not going like, ‘Oh, I know I can do this trick, but it's not working out all’… So I always have a book in my backpack. If I'm already out and about, I'm just like, 'Well, today's not the day'. I'll just find a park, sit at Tompkins and read or something.
I wish I knew that when I was younger. I would just try to force it. But as you grow up, you realize not every day is a good skate day.
It's just how it is.