No matter how good a skater or ghetto your back story, for a fledgling pro skater to sign with Pharrell Williams’ freshly minted Ice Cream Skateboarding team back in the mid-‘00s, the criticisms had to be expected.
With a faction of hardcore skaters already disgruntled with Williams for appropriating skate style as street couture, his skateboard team has had to deal with the “hateration” that comes with such glamorous associations. There is Youtube footage of the Ice Cream team (which also include Pharrell’s little brother Kato Williams) being booed mercilessly by the crowd at the 2006 Sneaker Pimps show until rappers the Clipse start rocking the mic. But for Long Island native and pro skater Terry Kennedy, the drama reached a sobering crescendo when he suffered a flurry of gunshots outside of a Long Beach house party in the summer of 2005.
“(Pharrell) will be like, 'People know you deal with me, people wanna rob you.' I never wanna listen,” Kennedy told MTV after the attack. “I'm not a hardheaded dude, but I got a lot of pride. All I can do now is just listen."
With close ties to Bam Margera and high-profile spots (Snoop Dogg’s “Drop it Like it’s Hot” video, the “Skate” videogame), Kennedy (who no longer skates for Ice Cream) suffers the hate as graciously as possible, telling Transworld Skateboarding in 2004, “I don’t knock the next person, ’cause everybody’s got their opinions. Do it big, keep it going, ’cause I’m not gonna hate on that person. If you can’t respect a man with millions, you ain’t never gonna have millions. That’s how I look at it. That’s it and that’s all. Live it up.”
See Terry Kennedy and friends shred the HARD Mini Street Park adjacent to the outdoor stage
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Terry Kennedy: The Kanye West of skateboarding?
LBC skater handles gunshots and haters on his way to sidewalk glory
Scott T. Sterling
MetromixJuly 15, 2008
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TK reps the LB
(Credit: TK Fly Society)
