Vinny Ponte
For me, skateboarding and music always went together. I was always messing around with both. I was always DJing, I was down with the dudes at Fat Beats… I’d go over to Amsterdam with Big L and those dudes. That’s just how shit was. It was kinda gradual until things finally reached a point where Supa came over to my house one day and Raekwon was there, smoking weed and writing rhymes. Supa just started going nuts, like, “Dude, that’s Raekwon!”
I never quit skating or anything, I just kinda faded away from skating professionally as I got more into other shit.
I was able to meet Raekwon through a friend of mine we used to call Billy Bullshits. You can guess why. This was probably around 2001 or so and he hits me up about doing a cooking show on tv. He wants to film Raekwon cooking in my kitchen.
My Story
Skateboarding was always first. I used to geek out on skaters all the time. In comparison, I probably only geeked out on maybe three rappers over the years. Like, I remember going over to Busta Rhymes’ studio so he could do a verse for this song Raekwon was working on. After we record everything, Raekwon asks me if I want to get a quick drop from Busta for my mixtape.
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I was turning 40-years-old and I got psyched to do a part. Like you said, I’m still in the skate scene and I thought it’d be cool. I brought it up to Berra and he was down. He gave me a key to the park, which was a blessing… I mean, don’t get me wrong, he definitely made sure I knew that I couldn’t be trying to push out some bullshit. I had to have some tricks in there or it was dead. But yeah, I’d go in there from 9pm to 4 in the morning. I worked hard on that thing. Those are some late nights and I really appreciate the Berrics for making it happen. They didn’t have to do all that for me.
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There's so much more to it than talent. You also gotta be at the right place at the right time and it helps to have the right friends. Everyone's always been so good to me. Don't ever burn your bridges, man. That's important. It's all about friends, family and growing up skating with each other. I appreciate all of it.
