YMCMB rapper opens park in his hometown with help from and pro skateboarders Paul Rodriguez and Theotis Beasley. By Nadeska Alexis
Lil Wayne at the opening of Trukfit skate park in New Orleans Photo: AP Photo / Gerald Herbert
Lil Wayne began his 30th birthday celebration one day early, by cutting the ribbon to officially launch his Trukstop skate park in his hometown New Orleans on Wednesday.
Wayne brought along his pro-skateboarding buddies Paul Rodriguez and Theotis Beasley to show off some of their advanced tricks for fans in attendance, while he treated them to a few of his amateur moves as well. The new skate park is housed in the city's Lower 9th Ward Village, one of the few buildings that survived the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
"I just want to help out my city, help out the people and the kids, give them something to do, something they haven't done before. It's always good to learn something new," Wayne told the Associated Press.
Wayne's Trukstop skate park was constructed with recycled materials and runs on solar energy while including all the essentials for skateboarders to thrive — half pipes, sliding rails and skating embankments. The new construction was a collaboration between Wayne, Mountain Dew — responsible for his DeWeezy campaign — the Make It Right Foundation and New York-based advertising firm Glu Agency. The project has been almost a year in the making.
In August, Lil Wayne launched his new sneaker line for SUPRA, after the company picked up on his passion for skateboarding. "I was just rocking 'em when I was skating and stuff and when I got real cool with the homey, [skateboarder] Stevie Williams, it was like a plug from him," Wayne told MTV News about the sneaker line. "It was just a mutual respect on each end so it was just bound to happen."
"I look at the reality and the facts of it, like I been rocking this shoe before I even knew what it was," he elaborated. "So for me to start skating and for these shoe lines to start coming at me like, 'Hey, we wanna give you your own skate shoe,' it was only right for me to mess with the people I been messing with even before they were a skate shoe."
Trukstop skate park will be open seven days a week to the general public, beginning on Monday.
Related Artists 
No comments:
Post a Comment