Jenkem Magazine recently spoke with professional skateboarder Braydon Szafranski about going on tour with Weezy F Baby around the United States of America and Europe.
Braydon discussed what himself, Lil Wayne and all the other skaters got up to while touring the world, skating with Wayne, what he is like as a person, why he thinks Tune is passionate about showing everyone he loves the skateboarding lifestyle, and more!
You can read the interview after the jump below.
I saw on your Instagram that you were on tour recently with Lil Wayne. How did that all come about?
Yeah, well Weezy’s my good homie and we were just talking one day and he asked me what I was doing and I said nothing and he said, “Do you want to jump on this trip tomorrow?” So I said “Okay, sure,” not really thinking anything of it. A couple of hours later I get a phone call from his manager saying that my flight is in six hours [laughs]. So I went to Europe for a month and ended up living life like a rockstar. We were basically doing everything that we usually do, but on a way different scale. Traveling with those guys is like traveling with Baker, except it was like the “Seven Star Hotel Tour.” We traveled around Europe, stayed in all five star hotels and did the dumbest things you could do. That’s all I can tell you because the rest of the shit that actually happened is a little too sketchy for people to know.Did you skate with Lil Wayne on tour?
Everyday. That’s why he took me with him. It was about having the time of my life. We rented out the biggest skate parks in every country every night, or went street skating and did everything you could possibly do just to have the best time. Wayne really wanted to show me. He said, “Skateboarding has really changed my life and made me the happiest person in the world and I want to show you what I do in this world and how much fun you can have.” And, holy shit, what happens on these stages and the after stage or whatever… My god, these fuckers live the life.He’s portrayed in the media as a big party guy, drinking sizzurp all the time, is he really like that?
Nah, he doesn’t drink sizzurp any more because last year some shit happened, whatever. It’s like everybody else, you get older and realize some of the shit you did as a kid was fun as a kid, but it’s time to grow up and take care of yourself.What was your average day on tour with Lil Wayne like?
There was no average day really. On the days that he had a show we just hung out and did whatever all daylong until 7:45, then they had a car service pick us up. We would go straight to the show, to the green room and chill. He had ramps and everything set up at his shows, and there were like four or five people there who would skate it. There was no responsibility for me as far as skating it, but I would go out there every once in a while and skate because it’s fun as fuck. It’s funny when you get out there in front of so many people and do really hard tricks and just slam, laugh with all the homies. Eat shit or land something that was impossible in front of 40,000 people. Afterward we would get rushed straight back to the hotel where we’d figure out what parks were around to see if we were going skating or what we were doing for the night. Then late that night like at 4 or 5 in the morning we’d go to the bus and drive to the next country. Days off we would just skate all day and do whatever we wanted.Why do you think Wayne is so passionate about showing everyone the he loves skating so much? Especially with all the videos and publicity that comes out of him skating?
I think that the whole world follows whatever he does. If you have that many people following you and you’re skating every single day, people are going to notice what the fuck you are doing. I think all the publicity just came with that. He likes to help out skating, he’s put his money into it, built skateparks for it, done everything. He’s just trying to give back to the industry because like anything, if you love it so much, why wouldn’t you want to?
