Teens’ Business Weds Hip-Hop & Skateboarding

Two years isn’t a lot of time to find one’s passion. That’s how long it took for Rob Folson, a budding local rapper, to fall in love with skateboarding.

Beyond the actual act of skating, the sense of community he felt when skating with people of all walks of life appealed to him.

So the 18-year-old (left in the photo) decided to marry his two passions — hip hop and skating — by starting his own custom skateboard company, Acid Wood Skateboards.

The Engineering and Science University Interdistrict Magnet High School senior reached out to a friend and fellow senior, J. Joseph, a budding engineer and filmmaker at right in photo), to be his business partner. The two are building a company they hope will put New Haven skateboarders on the map and add them to growing list of young entrepreneurs in the city doing big things. If they’re successful, they could become the Def Jam Records of the skateboarding world.

Folson is Acid Wood’s resident skate talent and board deck designer. He creates custom skateboard decks designed to a skater’s specification. In addition to boards, the duo create videos of local skaters perfecting skills and tricks to a hip-hop soundtrack.

Folson is usually in front of the camera as a skater. Joseph, who is 17 and happens to head up his own production company, Gear Primer Productions, is the man behind the camera.

The videos are edgy, with skaters performing gravity-defying stunts with great success and sometimes great defeat. The videos also turn a lens on the world of teenage boys, who do what you imagine teenage boys might do when they’re out of their parents’ eyesight. That means rough play, using profanity and just being downright silly.

Folson and Joseph said they want to use their videos to amplify New Haven’s place in skateboard culture as well as to showcase the communal aspect of the skating.

“Skateboarding is one big family,” Joseph said. Folson said unlike in traditional sports such as football and basketball, which he used to play, there’s no coach riding you to get to practice. He said most skaters are motivated by their own desire to be better and to master their sport, and the desire to skate with friends.

“When you’re a part of the skating community, you’re part of a family,” Folson said. “We never want to leave somebody out there alone.”

Hip-hop and skateboarding might be a surprising marriage. That’s because for decades skateboarding culture and punk rock have been near synonymous. The times, they are a-changing, pointed out J. S. Joseph, J. Joseph’s father.

Joe, who is better known to his radio followers as “Joe Ugly” of Ugly Radio, a New Haven- based internet radio station that plays hip-hop, R&B and reggae by independent artists, said these days it’s not uncommon to see high profile rappers like Lil’ Wayne with a skateboard in hand.

“Skateboarders are a whole new fan base,” said Joe, who is serving as a mentor to the two young entrepreneurs. As hip-hop has matured,  artists have amassed followings that reach beyond the boundaries of the urban centers where the music genre was born and into suburbia, he said.

Folson said locally he’s seeing more skateboard enthusiasts dabbling in music, particularly hip-hop. Acid Wood seeks to capitalize on the marriage of those interests. The two honor roll students have their sights set on finishing up school and heading off to college: Folson wants a degree in business; Joseph wants to put engineering and filmmaking together. In the meantime, they said their company helps skaters improve their craft.

“We want Acid Wood to be one of the first names in skateboarding,” Folson said.

“I think rather than having one really good skater from New Haven become famous, we’d rather be known as the type of company that is committed to the sport, and that we all get better,” Joseph said.

“Yeah,” said Folson, ​“we want make this progression, this movement together.”