“Was Really Hard for Me”: Years After His Retirement Tony Hawk Confides in Lil Wayne the Riveting Details of His Early Career

The name Tony Hawk and skateboarding have been synonymous for a lot of decades now. Starting his skating journey at the young age of 9, he has given the sport its current status. What used to be just another edgy hobby is now a mainstream sport because of his efforts. 

But what were the days of Hawk’s early career like? He was surely a beginner at some point. In fact, he was a beginner at the time, when skating was a mere outdoor activity. The inspirational skating legend recently opened up to hip-hop star Lil Wayne regarding his early days as a skater. Recalling his teenage years and skating, Hawk spoke about some riveting details of his career’s initial days.

When I was Sixteen, I Had My First…

The now-retired skateboarding superstar was speaking to Lil Wayne while recording for the Hawk vs. Wolf podcast. The podcast features Tony Hawk and radio sensation Jason Ellis. Lil Wayne threw a curious question to Hawk during the recording. “Does it take you guys years and stuff to learn a kickflip?” Hawk said it was a hard question to answer since kickflip wasn’t invented until he was 16. He said that he was already very deep into skating by the time. 

Hawk was originally a vert skater. In fact, he won the title of the best vert skater every year between 1984 to 1986. Speaking about switching to skateboarding, Hawk said, “to try to like channel that skill set into flat was really hard for me.” Hawk recalled that he used to try to do a kickflip in his driveway continuously. “I finally got one, but I did it on a freestyle board,” he said.

Tony Hawk and Rodney Mullen

Discussing the new skating moves of his time, the trio talked about how the kickflip had no name before. Talking about the invention of kickflips by skateboarder Rodney Mullen, Ellis said, “when Rodney Mullen did it, it didn’t even have a name. It was like that’s just a thing that he can do, and no one will ever do it.” Hawk told the group that Mullen used to call the trick a magic flip back then. Joking about how hard kickflips are and how only Mullen could do it, Lil Wayne said he wished people would have just left it at that. 

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The trio also discussed how all three of them were transitional skaters. Rapper Lil Wayne had also switched from vert skating to street skating. He said that his crew recognized his skills as a vert skater and knew what he could do. The clip ends with Lil Wayne mentioning how the street skaters could do a thousand tricks, but just a high drop from him was enough to astound them.

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