The Masked Gorilla recently chopped it up with Shady Records upstart Yelawolf as a part of their Unmasked series. During the interview, Yela spoke on how he first got into skateboarding as a teen. He said that he was initially exposed to skateboarding by his uncle, but that he really delved into the sport after a neighbor of his purchased him a board.
“My uncle and all his uncles were all skateboarders,” he said. “I grew up watching them when I was really little. I moved to Tennessee, and back then I’d…push around a little Nash skateboard with the saw blade grip tape…[but] this dude named Mario Lupocabo, who was this old school pro, he gave me a Complete skateboard…I just remember skating then, and when I was fourteen, I just really got into it.”
Yelawolf also spoke on the first time he met pro skater and television star Rob Dyrdek. He said that the two met at Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory while he and the Fantasy Factory’s Christopher “Drama” Pfaff were working on his hit “Daddy’s Lambo.” Ultimately, Yela says that Rob Dyrdek help connect him with a number of collaborators, including Travis Barker.
“I did a record with Drama called ‘Daddy’s Lambo,’ and when I went out there, Dyrdek happened to be at the factory, and he came through the studio and he really liked the record,” he explained. “We just got cool. He made connections for me with Travis Barker…Felix from Famous, Paul Wall, Dante Ross [and] Skinhead Rob [of the Transplants].”
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The full interview can be seen below.
