Emeric Pratt Interview - chrisnieratko.com

Emeric Pratt Interview

[ photo by bryce kanights ]

Emeric, do you ride for Emerica?

No, I do not.

Why not?

Fuck, I don't know. Because i'm not on their team.

You seem like a natural for Emerica, since your name is basically Emerica.

Yeah, actually it's not pronounced that way, EM-eric. But I get a lot of questions about that and shit. I was pretty hyped when they made that company thought because it was so close to my name.

You should have been their poster boy or something.

Fuck that. Well, if they want to make me their poster child, they can go ahead and do that.

What would you do as Emerica's poster child?

Skate, man.

But would you dress up as a big hot dog?

As a hot dog? I doubt it.

How about dress up inside a big shoe?

That might sell actually, dude. But, no. I dont' want to dress up like a fucking shoe.

But you're Emeric, and you ride for Emerica.

I don't ride for Emerica, and I just wouldn't dress up in a shoe, Chris.

You're a sissy, man.

Well, fuck, I'm not wearing no shoe.

Which one of your parents is white? Your mom or your dad?

Neither.

Then how come you're so white?

Well, as I look at my skin, it doesn't appear to be anything close to white. Is it something about my hair?

Yeah, what's up with the white hair?

It's not white hair, dude. It's straightened.

You got that shit long and straight like a white man.

It's my flair, dude. No, well, however you want to see it. You used to see it in braids and all that shit, and I got sick of rocking it, so I just went with the straight 'fro.

Do you get a lot more white chicks with your white hair?

Probably, it might help, I don't know.

You like the white chicks, don't you?

I like any kind of chick. I like the white chicks. No, I really like Hispanic chicks, to tell you the truth.

I heard you were on a strict white diet for a while.

Whatever comes my way, man. Most of it I won't turn down.

I actually heard that there was a point in your life where you were only into dating big ugly white girls.

I might have had a couple in my time, but, no. That's not like a prerequisite or anything.

How big and how ugly?

Bigger than me and uglier than me, I guess.

I heard you've dated a girl with hairy-ass armpits?

Fuck, no.

What about this girl from Sebastian Joe's Ice Cream?

Yeah, I was banging her for a minute. She didn't have any hairy-ass armpits. I check that shit, dude. I don't think I could be with no hairy-ass broad. I'm not that much of a hippie.

So tell me about this fat girl from the ice-cream place?

This chick was my manager, and one day---

You worked at the ice-cream place?

Yeah. It was fucking coffee and ice-cream. One day she came over to my house, so I banged her, and then I banged her a couple more times.

How fat was she? Like 300 pounds?

No.

Four Hundred?

Probably more like 180 or something.

Oh, my God, was she crushing you?

No, I was crushing it.

What's up with all the white tricks?

Shit, dog, whay are you calling them white? What's a black trick?

Some flip-in, flip-out shit.

Well i'm not flipping in or flipping out, i'm just doing whatever I do. How you gonna call my shit white tricks, dude?

Because who the hell does kickflip stalefishes?

I don't know. Fuck, I just do whatever. If I think I can do it, I do it, then I'll take a picture of it.

Why you always grabbing your board, then?

I'm a hands-on kinda guy, I guess.

But you got white hair, you got white tricks, and all you got is white friends.

Is that so? A lot of my skater friends, yeah. Most of my friends are skaters from here, Minneapolis, and they happen to be white, so I guess you got me on that one.

Don't you think of yourself as kind of assimilating to the white man?

No, I wouldn't think so. I'm not gonna act a certain way just because black skaters are supposed to act this way or something. I'm just gonna be how I am. I don't give a fuck about pleasing some dude that wants to see a black skater wear a chain and match or whatever.

You think it has a lot to do with living in Minneapolis?

What's that?

The white air about you.

Fuck, man, I don't know. I really don't know how to answer that question.

Aren't you like the one of eight black dudes in all of Minnesota?

All of Minnesota; no. ther'es only five of us.

So do yous guys have little parties, just the five of yous?

Yeah. We get together and rage. We just talk about shit like, you know, Martin Luther King, fucking all that kinda shit.

What does Olu mean in -- what nationality are you?

My parents are from West Africa. My mom's Liberian, and my dad's from Sierra Leon.

Siberian, did you say?

My mom's from Monrovia, Liberia.

I don't even know where the hell that is, where the hells that?

West Coast of Africa.

Oh, West side.

West Side, dog.

What does Olu mean in wherever that's from?

I guess it means "God."

Oh, you're just gonna throw that out there? You're not sure, so you're just gonna claim "God?"

Well, that's what they fucking told me. You want me to call her up and ask or something?

No, no. If you're thinking that's what it is.

It might be wrong.

What does Emeric mean?

I was told me means mushroom.

You're the mushroom God?

Fuck, yeah, dude.

Are you serious?

I've done a lot of 'shrooms in my day.

What kind of responsibilities come with being the mushroom God?

You're supposed to trip out every once in a while, I guess. But, no, I don't do that shit anymore.

Tell me about a good experience on it.

Me and this dude Rob ate some 'shrooms once, he ran somebody over--

What?

Yeah, he hit some fat dude and broke his windshield. And then we ended up hanging out with Caz, of all people, and just 'shrooming in his van, like hanging out. He's got a hammock in his van, so we just rode around in his van, lying in the hammock, trip out, and that was about it. I can't really remember most of the drugs stories.

Well, do you remember what happend when you hit the fucking fat dude?

He fucking sued the guy. He sued Rob. He didn't even hurt him though; It just like, he rolled off the car, but he was all fat. Something was wrong with him or whatever.

Did Rob see him, did he turn the corner? What happend?

No, he didn't even see him, like I saw, and I was like, "Hey, Rob, look out, there's a dude!" And he looks at me while i'm warning him, and he hit him.

And the fat boy just flew up and smashed into his windshield?

No, he just pretty much did a roly-poly on the car and cracked the windshield, just laid there fucking all fat and helpless.

Did you drive over him again and just take off?

No, actually it was right next to a fire station, and they just cruised over and picked him up and shit, and they exchanged information, and we were on our way.

Well, you think you'd remember if the police came while you were on mushrooms running over a man.

I try to block that shit out.

Do you eat a lot of cheese because you live in Minnesota?

That's Wisconsin you're thinking about. So, no I don't eat a lot of cheese.

What, they don't have cheese in Minnesota?

Yes, they do. But I don't go out specifically looking for cheese or anything.

I thought that's what you did at your five-person block party: get your cheese on.

No, i'm not a big cheese fan; maybe on a burger or some shit.

You're not that flashy of a dress guy, you know, you're pretty much jeans and T-shirts, right?

Yeah.

What were you doing on a Tommy Hilfiger tour?

Actually it was Gaton's, Hudson's, Marshall Fields, that whole fucking thing. It's the mall store like Neiman Marcus. The guy that used to run the old skatepark here called me up, and he was like, "Hey, I need somebody to go on this tour, skating, four G's for two weeks." So I said, "All right, let's do this." And we just toured around the midwest in some bus. It was pretty fucked up, man, like there was three skaters, three fucking bladers, two bikers, and they had a dance team.

A what?

Yeah, they had a fucking dance squad. Like Paula Abdul, I don't know. Just thatlame shit you see on TV where people are all choreographed and shit.

Like boy-band shit.

Pretty much. It was more like four girls and a coupla gay dudes. But, yeah, we'd just go to a mall, they'd set the shit up, and we'd skate for like 15 or 20 minutes and then go to the hotel.

Did you pork a dancer?

No, I tried, but they weren't feeling me, dude. I was busy smoking weed and doing mushrooms and trying to drink. And they didn't like that.

Did you have to wear Tommy Hilfiger?

I had to wear Tommy Hilfiger jeans, and then like they had some shirts for us. They picked out outfits for us.

Did they dress you?

Yeah, I had some hot-ass bitch feeling me up the whole time. No, they didn't dress us, man.

Did it make you feel shallow and dirty?

Oh, hell, yeah. I felt like I was whoring myself out, but, you kow, that money for such a short time, I just did it, and then moved to Cali.

How come your mom wouldn't let you go outside and play as a kid?

Because I used to get in trouble a lot, I guess.

I heard you were just like one of those little sickly kids.

Oh, I have asthma, or I had it.

How do you get rid of asthma? I thought that shit was like AIDS.

Well, It's not so bad, at least anymore. Like I don't need an inhaler or anything, like I haven't used it since I was 12. Like in the winter I couldn't go out all the time, that was about it.

What would happen to you? You just start heaving?

Pretty much, stay out for a while, and mucous builds up in your lungs, kinda like smoking or something, how you got tar in your lungs? You just hack and cough for days, until you get all that shit out.

I heard you use your mom's car when you go on dates.

Yeah, while i'm here in Minnesota. I don't really go on dates though.

Why not?

Because I just haven't been out on a date in a while. Usually I don't approach chicks that often.

What was the last date you went on?

Just went out to eat.

Nothing cute like an amusement park, winning her a teddy bear?

I don't do that stuff. Just dinner.

That's not very exciting, you're not a very exciting date.

I guess that's why I don't get to go on too many dates.

Man, girls need excitement.

Girls need cock.

You ever pork a chick in your mom's car?

No, I haven't. I'll give it a shot though before I leave.

How come your mom wouldn't let you go to the skatepark when you were young?

Because it was in the ghetto. Right down the street a cop got shot by this dude or some shit. So she wasn't feeling it. She's paranoid about a lot of shit. So she wouldn't definitely let me do that. After a while, I just started going there, like when my friend Wayne turned 16. He'd drive, and I'd go.

Did you ever get shot?

No, never been shot.

That would probably help your image.

Kinda like a rapper.

Look what it's doing for 50 cent.

I know, dude, I might have to take one.

I don't think it would hurt to get shot in the ass.

I bet it would.

I'm not saying it wouldn't hurt at all, I'm just saying in comparison.

In comparison to like your face or something? I really don't want to find out, dude.

Is it true you like to scuba dive?

No. And that's really fucked up that Brian did that. Because I guess I was being a little cocky or something, but I don't remember. He put a scuba diver in front of like my footage in one of these videos I had, like kept telling people it was me. I barely go swimming.

Can you swim?

Hardly. Doggy paddle. I don't really go swimming much. I used to swim a lot when I was a kid, in school and shit, but I don't really go out and try to swim.

I would pay you to shoot a sequence of you doggy paddling across a pool.

Really? How much you gonna give me?

A hundred bucks.

Let's talk thousands here, buddy.

For a sequence of you doggy paddling?

Well, I'm just trying to get as much money out of you as I can, you know?

But i'm not saying to do it in a pool of alligators.

Oh, okay. You'd give me a hundred bucks? For a sequence? Well, maybe, I'll see what I can do.

When you're in California where do you live?

In Oakland.

That's gotta be a major change.

Yeah, I guess. Pretty mellow there, dude.

But that's like the racial inverse of Minnesota.

Yeah.

You went from having five black people to having five white people now.

Something like that. It's chill though. I don't live in East Oakland or nothing like that, so i'm not like straight up in the 'hood. But it's chill.

You ever see Too Short? And his bitches?

No, I've been looking for him. I saw the Hieroglyphics though or whatever. They live by where I used to live.

Those are some of the best white rappers ever.

They're pretty dope, pretty tight. You consider them to be white rappers? Because they're not thuggin'?

How is it riding for Iota, a small company based in the Midwest, and the whole industry's all out West?

It's pretty dope actually, just because it's all my friends, I'm really comfortable on the team. I like it better than anything I've done so far.

Tell me about the winters out there. I don't think people understand how gnarly it gets.

From about November to April or May even, you're fucked, like you don't go outside. We're talking with the wind chill negative 80. You got a skatepark, so you go there every day. I hate going to the skatepark with fucking 40 kids just because I like to skate with a couple friends. It just sucks, it's too cold. Everything freezes. That's when you drink and do drugs, I guess.

People tell me the snowdrifts on the side of the road can be like six feet tall.

Yeah, I guess that makes like a good wall to crash into if you get into an accident.

Did you ever have any of your friends die because they made a fort inside a wall, and then a plow came along and killed them?

No, that was always the myth though, like if you build a snow fort, and the shit collapses on you, you're fucked. It never happend. Not to me at least.

When you would play hide and seek in the snow, would you always be the first guy to get caught?

I never played hide and seek in the snow. I play at night, because then I got the fucking advantage.

Tell me your sponsors.

Fobia Skate Shop, Iota skateboards, Shorty's hardware, Black Magic and Black Panthers.

Comments

Terence
29 Sep 2008, 21:28

emeric pratt seems to be a cool dude. im black and im and i skate.im feelin him