Hopsin hits Dew Tour Stage and shows off his SKATE skills

Hopsin warmed up the crowd from the Dew Tour Stage on Saturday just before the Men’s Street Semi Final, and will be on-site all weekend meeting with fans: Undercover Prodigy, the hip-hop record label he founded in 2016, has a pop-up shop set up in the Dew Tour Experience fan zone, where he’s been freestyling and selling merch.

Try challenging him to a game of SKATE while you’re at the Undercover Prodigy booth: Hopsin is a lifelong skater himself, and battled a volunteer from the crowd to a flatland trick showdown on stage during his set on Saturday. He opened the game with his go-to trick, a nollie tre flip, as a subtle shoutout to his core fans: “Nollie Tre Flip” is a song about the skate life from Hopsin’s 2013 album “Knock Madness.” He lost the SKATE battle on stage – Dew Tour fans aren’t messing around, either – but did manage to prove he has some legit skate skills. Not bad for skating on a borrowed board in an impromptu face-off just after performing a full rap set.

Hopsin is from the Panorama City neighborhood of Los Angeles, and said from the Dew Tour Stage that he started skating there in 1997, when he was 12 years old. Skate references are peppered throughout his six albums, and he has stirred up some controversy in recent years on dis tracks questioning the skate cred of some of his hip-hop peers, including Lupe Fiasco and Lil’ Wayne.

Skateboarding and hip-hop have become nearly inseparable street cultures over the years: several Dew Tour athletes have legit rap skills, and Hopsin was actually the second artist with a skate background to hit the Dew Tour Stage on Saturday: Destiny Rogers, who performed earlier in the day, also skates and has featured skateboarding prominently in her music videos.

Hopsin’s music, including his newest single, “Low-Key,” is available on all streaming platforms.