Smoke, Skate, and Hip-Hop: Street Culture at Its Finest - Part I
Celebrating 50 years of hip-hop.
*This article is part one of a three-part series on cannabis, skate culture, and hip-hop.
In recent years, we’ve seen the cannabis industry evolve from black market status to a multi-billion dollar industry, quickly becoming a normalized commercial powerhouse. Concurrently, two other paramount subcultures emerged from the tenacious underground alongside Reefer’s road to fame: hip-hop and skate culture.
Skate, Hip-Hop, and Weed: A Historical and Subcultural Juxtaposition
With humble roots beginning in the streets of major cities, rebellious underlings from coast to coast were fueled by a have-to-do-it-yourself mentality, often stemming from communities disenfranchised, disregarded, and rejected.
Cannabis, skate, and hip-hop communities have continually shown their alliance(s) throughout the years, not just culturally or geographically but also politically, progressively, and financially.
This three-way relationship has undoubtedly paid off with the onset of legal cannabis, launching the underground phenomena into commercial success, and I’ll tell you — Business is booming.
The connection between skate and hip-hop is cheek by jowl clad with blunt or bong. The extensive history and intertwining affiliations are endless. Still, if we’re to cover any points in the history of any of it, it’s to say that no matter what- the three belong and thrive together.
Skate and Hip-Hop’s Evolution and Love Affair with Cannabis
The first commercial skateboards appeared in 1959 after surfers in California figured out a way to attach wheels to their boards and “sidewalk surf.” However, it wasn’t until the 1970s, when magazines started promoting youngster skaters like Tony Alva and Stacey Peralta, that it became a worldwide craze.
These were the early days of the Zephyr Skate Team (Z-Boys), where Alva fondly recalls toking with the crew before dropping into an empty pool in the backyard of suburban homes and skating around Venice Beach (AKA Dogtown). Tony Hawk became THE Tony Hawk here.
These young California kids probably weren’t thinking about professional careers in skateboarding at the time, and legal weed you can buy a store? Get out of here! It probably would have gotten a good laugh, though, because these pioneers were all about good times and Cali vibes, and no one could stop them.
The Early Beats of Hip-Hop
While the Z Boys were laying the groundwork for weed-smoking skate culture on the West Coast, early forms of hip-hop began to make ripples in the streets of N.Y.C. Not long afterward, emcees in the surrounding boroughs began to create groundbreaking new music by mixing diverse sounds with record-scratching and vocal hooks as deejays hosted house parties. Hip-hop pioneers like Grandmaster Flash, Jazzy Jay, and Fab Five Freddy, among MANY others, set the pace and BLEW up.
Throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the stylish sounds of this new music genre could be heard blasting from boomboxes across the city, very likely followed by wafting blunt-scented breezes, defining a new era of urban culture in New York City, and quickly, the world. This was also around the same time skateboarding’s youth culture came to fruition, and the underground following started to take off.
Listen to the History of Hip-Hop in 100 Tracks on Spotify.
Beastie Boys, Spike Jonze, and Girl Skateboards
As the skate and hip-hop scenes progressed on the East and West coasts, they began to merge into more diverse and distinctive street cultures. But, there was one driving force that no one saw coming that fast-tracked the new scene- A little group known as the Beastie Boys.
Their unique relationship with skateboarding while becoming hyped-up weed-smoking hip-hop rockstars incited the fire to open the subterranean portal of the underground realms, imploring a new generation to create something new that belonged to them.
With the wild world of the 1970–80s N.Y.C. scene at their young fingertips, Mike-D, M.C.A., and Ad-Rock explored the boroughs from subway to subway, picking up on the ever-present diversity of the city and expressing themselves through all styles of music, graffiti art, skateboarding, and camaraderie.
The Beastie Boys wore “Get Blunted” tee shirts on stage and often referenced smoking weed in their songs and music videos. After relocating to Los Angeles briefly, the Beastie Boys, along with friends Spike Jonze and Mike Carroll, shot “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun,” featuring street-skaters hitting the pavement across the city, as well as shots of the jokester crew getting stoned, wearing costumes, and generally goofing around. Later, Jonze and Carroll would go on to found Girl Skateboards with fellow skaters Megan Baltimore and Ryan Howard. Chocolate Skateboards, Girl’s sister company, would be formed later.
