How long have you been skating?
I've been skating since I was 11, and I'm 21 now.
That's 10 years.
Do you remember how you started?
There were a bunch of friends of mine around
the neighborhood that got boards when skating
was coming into hype. We just wanted to skate and
do what everyone else was doing back then. We
started skating like that.
Do you remember what your first board was?
It was a Brazilian Mustabi. That was a shop
down there, and these two rad street skaters
named Cupim and Cabralha both rode for the
shop, which was a big thing back then. So any
boards they rode, you wanted to ride.
When did you first realize or think
that skating was it; that this is what
you wanted to do with your time?
Actually, there were phases. At some
points, I'd think that I had to start study-
vert. I skated the wooden vert ramp there
all day, everyday for like four years, and
then it died out, Cristiano, the guy who
does the Silly Society videos in Brazil-his
dad owned Ultra Skatepark, but he had to
sell it, and he moved out of the state. So
we had to start skating Prestige which was
a smaller ramp-tighter transitions and
cement. A bunch of people stopped skat-
ing right then. There were probably 10 vert
skaters who were up-and-coming. Then all
of a sudden there were 3. Digo was the
one who kept it alive. He was always skat-
ing Prestige because that's where he grew
up. Before, he would come and skate Ultra
there was a pro contest at Ultra Skatepark, but
mostly it was something small, like a contest for all
the little kids, that Cristiano's dad would put up.
That motivated us. There was Overall skate mag.
and Yeah skate mag, but those were dying out
when I started. When I actually really got into
vert, there wasn't much going on. Skating was
going down. The two magazines died out so we
didn't have any magazines for probably two
years. Then Tribo came along and they got
everything going again.
How much did you know about skating in the
U.S.? How did you find out about it?
We had Thrasher, Transworld, Poweredge-all
those mags were in Brazil. I remember seeing
them at a friend's house. It wasn't like
you could find it in every store, but we
would get it somehow. Someone would
copy it and people would take it to the
park so we could check it out there. We
"ONE DAY
THEY TOOK
MY BOARD
AWAY FROM
ME, SO I
WENT TO THE
PARK AND
SKATED ON
MY FRIEND'S
BOARD. YOU
JUST CAN'T
STAY AWAY."
ing and forget about skating. I'd think
about my future. At other points, I'd
think, "I want to skate-this is what I
want to do." I remember when I started
mountain biking a lot, and skating
wasn't really paying good, and there
was nothing going on in Brazil. I just got
over it a little bit. I started riding, and
studying, and thinking about other stuff..
Then one day I realized I stopped and thought.
"Wait, I am a skateboarder and I want to skate." It
just comes to your head and you forget every-
thing... Now I know that this is it. But back then, in
Brazil, I wasn't getting paid or anything. I didn't
have any good wheels or product to skate because
it was really hard to get. So I kinda' got unmotivat-
ed. I used to skate this wooden vert ramp a lot, but
then that park got destroyed, and we had to skate
cement. At that point. I thought. "This is too
painful." It just wasn't the same.
That was the cement thing you learned every-
thing on? What was the name of that place?
That was Prestige. That was after the whole Ultra
Skatepark era, which was when I started skating
Skatepark, but everyone would fuck with
him because he skated small ramps and he
couldn't really skate the big ramp. But
then, all we had was Prestige, and he was
the guy. I give Digo credit for that keep-
ing vert alive in Brazil.
It seems that skating is generally
believed to be an American pas-
time. What was it like growing
up way down in Brazil? Was
there Brazilian skate 'zines and
contests and stuff like that?
There was lots of amateur contests.
There were pro contests too, but we didn't
see them that much. Every once in a while
never watched the people in the mags
skate or anything, unless it was the H-
Street videos. We couldn't see anyone
else. It was pretty much our own scene.
We did what we wanted to do. We'd try
something and it was all out of our
heads. That's how it came about.
Seeing as how you learned to
skate on cement halfpipes and
stuff like that, does it make slamming on
masonite feel like you're falling onto a
big air mattress?
Yeah. After skating Ultra wood, then skating
Prestige and getting used to that, and then
going back to wood-it was like heaven.
You're stoked. You can just try any trick. It
slides a lot better. It's easier to do tricks, it
gives in. When you slam you can get back up.
and skate again. It's not like slamming on
cement where you have to take some time and
maybe not skate for the rest of the day. It's
harsh. Your pads would go down and you'd get
kneeburn. It's rough, but we would skate it
because that's all we had.
Above: A crisp kickflip caught high above the ZN skatepark hip.
Opposite: Backside ollie across the channel of the Guará Bowl. This 12-foot deep monster is the Stonehenge of Brazilian skateboarding.