Hey, it's Matthew here. Sweet Jamaica,
just found a whole bunch of almonds on the ground.
I pulled over to see what was going on,
it looks like someone's drying them up.
Anyhow, today I'm on a mission
to go check out the new skate park in Jamaica.
It's in Bull Bay, it's called the Freedom skate park,
and looks like we're going to get some sunny weather today
and I'm hoping that we're going to get a chance to ride it
before it gets soaked up again.
So I'm going to rip it over to Kingston area now,
and first off, I'm going to go to Skateboard Palace
which is a skateboard shop,
I need to get some grip tape for a board,
maybe I'll get a new board, check out those guys,
and then after hit the park, so let's roll.
All right.
Made it. Mask on, took a long time in traffic.
Oh my goodness,
but I'm here at Skateboard Palace, Kingston, Jamaica.
All right, I'm here.
Skateboard palace with Douglas, getting a new board.
Lucky man, and look at this.
Yes. This is our new model for the Reggae skate park.
Wow.
In Boys' Town,
Amazing.
Yeah man, and we're getting ready
to build 20,000 square foot with California skate park.
So sick.
Boys' Town is so excited. You know Boys' Town?
You been to Trench Town?
I have passed by,
but I haven't really spent much time there.
For sure. But I'm glad you came by, man.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
I really enjoy your show, Ras Kitchen?
Yeah, yeah.
I really enjoy it, man.
Cool, well I'm so happy there's a skate shop
because look at this, Douglas.
What?
So I left this board in Jamaica
last time I was here.
All right.
Left it at my friend's place.
He had some guests at his house who's an interior designer.
Okay.
What does she do? She rips off the grip tape
and then drills holes in it, makes a shelf out of it.
Nice.
So I show up, expecting to ride
and my board is like, all mash up. I go, "oh no!"
"What did you do?"
But then I figured, you know what?
I kinda need a new board anyway. I'm going to,
So just slap some grip tape on it.
I need some grip tape
and then I'm just going to give this
to a friend of mine here and then I'll just ride this one
and take home and,
Yeah man, this is a good, you got good taste breeding.
Thank you.
This is a real nice board. SK8MAFIA, big ups.
Big ups, SK8MAFIA.
Yeah man, this is a really nice board. 8.25.
Interesting graphics,
I just choose all on shape, but, hey, why not?
No, no your... it works.
It works. Hell yeah. Cool.
I'm really glad you came to the shop man.
All good, I'm happy to be here.
It's got everything. So there's, I mean this place
has more brands even than my local skate shop.
We have almost over fifty, bro.
Wow.
So, look at you, man.
It's the picture of you and Tiago Lemos up there.
Yeah, Ti ago gave me that board in Brazil.
Skateboard Palace, people, come visit.
This is it. All the clothes you want.
Deep V.
Yeah, all the good brands
like Baker,
Flip,
SK8MAFIA,
Maxallure,
April.
Just so awesome that,
skateboarding is just building up so much in Jamaica.
And I'm so excited to hit this park,
especially with a new board.
Lucky.
Yeah. I don't know how many boards
I've been through.
I stopped counting at, you know, a few hundred.
So what's your,
what's your best trick, my brother?
Damn, I don't know.
What? What do you mean, you don't know?
How your ollie?
Well, the o, the ollie's fine.
The only flip trick I can do every time still
is varial heel, that's my go-to.
That's not bad.
It's a good one to have.
I guess, I can still do that better than kick,
better than kickflips, you know.
How is your kickflip?
Shit.
My kickflip is terrible.
All right, well, you know.
But you know, I'm almost 40 so,
Growth is good.
I'll take what I can get.
Your kickflip doesn't have to be the best.
As long as you got good ollie and good control.
Well, I like riding mini ramp more and more lately so,
Nice, so you guys need a, a ramp down by
Ras Kitchen, man.
Oh, it's my dream to have some wicked place in Jamaica
and then build a mini ramp outside, you know,
by the water somewhere.
All right.
Some grip going on here. This is good.
Yeah, it's really cool. You guys have another park
coming on the way. It's just awesome.
Yeah, yeah man, this park is going to be so,
it's going to be,
I'll roll it out.
I just got to do the edge.
Not bad, man, clean cut.
Not bad.
No, not bad breeding.
Just needs to sand and then,
Yeah.
I always sand down the grip a bit,
cause my, I don't like wrecking my shoes so quick, you know.
Let's get those trucks on there now.
You want the trucks?
Yup.
All right.
And my friend should be pretty stoked
cause he just said, uh, oh, I don't have a board.
If you have an old one, let me know.
I'm like, matter of fact, I do have an old one.
And you have his trunks and all his stuff?
Yeah, he's all good. So, he just needs the board.
All right.
Brand new board. Skateboard Palace.
Today is going to be a very, very fun day.
Have fun, my brother.
That's Douglas, come visit this man here.
Yeah Man
Absolute gentlemen and, and true guy so,
comes support your local shop. It's very, very important.
Respect, breeding.
Right.
All right. Down to the park, we go.
I'm here at the skate park. Freedom skate park.
It is way bigger than I thought, it looks insane.
There's proper pool coping.
It's got a beautiful view of all these mountains here.
You got the quarry.
You've got Jamnesia over there.
There's that surf spot, just over the hill.
So this,
is just,
amazing.
I can't believe how nice it is.
I haven't rolled on it yet.
I'm just powering up on some fried chicken.
Took me a lot longer to get into Kingston
and get my board set up, as it usually does.
I was expecting to be here by 11:30
and it's now, one o'clock or two, or what time is it even?
It's one o'clock so, yeah, a little later
but I am so looking forward to trying this park out.
I'll do a full on tour and some of the guys are here
doing a program and, where they help the kids
learn how to skate so great support
from Concrete Jungle Foundation.
Do a little tour of this park.
Oh my God. That's gnarly.
Rails,
grind box.
A little curb.
This is crazy, man.
Woah, dear.
Yes sir.
What a nice park.
My g.
My god, yeah. That's sick.
Yes, Diego. Woo.
Sick.
What a place.
It's a little hot but,
Yeah, at least we got
the breeze today though, right?
Yeah.
Sometimes the overcast helps too.
Look at this hip over here.
Some rollie rollies.
A little gap. Wow.
And the hump.
Okay. Let's get warmed up.
Woah, I'm sweating already.
It is 35 degrees.
I guess there was a reason why it was empty
but there's a kids program starting now.
So a few local guys have showed up, a few local rippers.
All right. So yeah,
I'm with Diego from Concrete Jungle Foundation.
Can you tell me a little bit about your role here
and how you got started?
Absolutely. So, I got in touch with the front
about the project here in Kingston, Jamaica.
This is actually eight mile Bull Bay.
So yeah, we're here in eight mile Bull Bay, Jamaica.
And essentially this is one of the first skate parks brought
to the island apart from DIY's and other, you know,
spots that local skaters have made.
But yeah, so Concrete Jungle Foundation is essentially
a nonprofit organization from the United Kingdom.
And essentially they build skate parks
in third-world countries and facilitate those skate parks
with subsidized youth skateboarding classes.
So all our classes here at the Freedom skate park are free
for the youth and we offer board programs
and we try to make it more than just skateboarding,
we'll do different community events, planting trees,
you know beach pickups, trash pickups,
and anything to kind of just promote positivity
and the camaraderie of skateboarding, you know,
but that's the project here.
This is our latest and greatest project,
and yeah, all is welcome. Come on by.
We'd love to have you.
That's a land, that's a land. That counts.
How has the response been to the skate park?
I guess we can kind of tell, with the kids here but,
Yeah. I mean the response has been great but,
it, it maybe took a little bit of time,
but since the park had been built,
the curiosity was already there.
People know what skateboarding is obviously,
but to see it come to their community
is like probably a little shocking
and a few of the kids took to it right away.
So then it was like, easy. Spread like wildfire, you know?
So now that we're like,
three months into our first, like, official program,
it's, I feel like it's been really successful.
And I heard there was a lot of
community involvement like getting people involved
and hired as builders and laborers,
and just sort of skill-building.
Yeah. Throughout like, the skateboard community,
and just Bull Bay, in general,
like most of the work went out right here, which is,
of course important when you're going to set up
something like this in the community to give back that way.
So yeah. All the hands were from around here.
That's awesome.
Well, I can't wait to see everyone to just rip it
and I'm sure even within six months, it's going to be insane
what all the local guys are doing.
Well, probably already. I mean,
I know there's some of the guys that built the gully spot
that already had some solid skills.
Yeah. Those guys were rippers before,
but now that they have a proper park, they've actually,
like so, like they're doing stuff
I never saw them do before.
And then we have a handful of kids that
have excelled so fast.
It's shocking.
You know, they're out here, you know, they live right here.
So they're out here every day.
Usually when it cools off a little bit,
you know, in the heat of the day,
there's only going to be a handful of these kids.
Yeah.
So they dry out.
It'll be exciting to see like, what comes out of this
because there's already some really good skaters.
All right, so I'm with Daniel.
Are you one of the instructors here? What's your title here?
Yeah, actually a instructor.
Awesome.
We love the silly kids out there
getting out so my team would.
Really and truly, I want to be a pro.
You know, but I love to be an instructor at the same time.
But really and truly, I want to be a pro
because in myself, I think I'm a skater, you know.
Yeah, but to be a instructor is really good still,
because a lot of kids need help with skateboarding.
Such as me, because I never born in skateboarding.
People taught me how to skate and things so,
I need to keep up people so they feel comfortable
what I'm doing.
I think that way I will make it,
and reach somewhere in life, you know.
So, respect and love.
Respect, and how,
and who are some of your influences around here?
Who got you into skating?
I would say Sharman Iver, Ronald,
those guys I seen skate from boss,
all the guys who skating in
my Bull Bay, those guys influenced me to skate,
keep out of trouble a lot.
So I appreciate all that they do for me and everyone else,
because, I got my brother named Joshua,
they also taught him how to skate too, so, respect.
Well, congrats on the park, man. Enjoy it.
Yeah, bro.
And hopefully I'll get some wine to you guys
later once the sun calms down a bit.
Yeah, bro. Respect.
Respect.
All right.
All right, so I'm Claude.
In what case, I do have a YouTube channel.
I do teach art or photography and videography
here with Matthew at the skate park.
Getting some skating done, and I'm here as well
getting some video done.
You know that's for the whole dancing thing
and everything at eight mile Bull Bay.
Take two on a dance video, you know, tough out here.
You get me, got Matthew behind the camera.
That's it.
Shout out to Matty, for sure, for sure, for sure.
Big up, big up. All right, ready?
If you all are wondering what I'm using.
This is the Weebill S, with the Canon 80d right here.
80d?
Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure.
So, that's my set up for today, you know.
Yeah, the MRBD. Dance from the shoot right now.
Yeah, were taking you today, J.A.
All right, ready.
Solid, MRBD family.
For sure, for sure. That's it.
Proper showmen right here.
Yeah, yeah. For sure. All right.
Great guys. Good stuff.
That was a great session, I had a good time.
Got to work in the new board.
You can't have a new board that's all perfect graphics so,
got a little, a little damage done on this guy anyway.
And it was awesome to see the kids ripping,
lot of good locals
and especially the guys that just started,
the kids that don't even have skate shoes
and they're still getting their way around the park
and shredding around and hitting the transitions so,
yeah, just a, a great time.
I can't wait to see what happens
with skateboarding in Jamaica
and how it's going to build up.
And you can only imagine how talented
that these kids are going to get
in even a couple of years so, awesome to see,
mad respect to Concrete Jungle Foundation
for building this park and everyone else that was involved.
I'm really happy that Ras Kitchen was a small contributor
to raising some money towards this cause back in June,
we did a live show and raised some money,
thanks to the fans of Ras Kitchen.
So bless up to all of you that donated.
And it is a cause that's close to my heart
because I've been a skateboarder since I was a kid
and definitely kept me out of trouble as a youth,
and we didn't have any kind of skate park
until well into my teens so,
the fact that they've got this park here for the kids
and the community is great
and you can see how it's become a community hub already.
It's not just skateboarders, there's bikers,
there's other kids hanging out people,
people shooting music videos, dancing,
all kinds of different social programs for everyone so,
massive respect.
Please do check the link
for Concrete Jungle Foundation below.
They're doing great stuff all over the world
not just in Jamaica, but Angola, Africa, Peru,
and South America, and building parks all over the world
for underprivileged youth. So bless up.
Thanks for watching. Please do subscribe and share,
and more skateboard stuff coming soon.