RK SHOE CLAYMATION from Alejoh on Vimeo.

We are proud to announce that Our Awesome Little Rollerblader, Domenik Koch, won the the third edition of the “Rock the Garden” rollerblading contest in the under 16 category!  

We heard that Domenik represented Ripstyle in the german city of Bremen with a fine display of excellent rollerblading, and nearly won first place overall, even blowing all but one competitor of the 16 and up Category out of the water!

Congratulations, Domenik! You did a great job! We’re very proud of you, and happy to have you on board!

The event was powered by XSK8.de, Be-Mag, Grindhouse, SAG Sport 2, Dom Seven, You Messe, Ripstyle Brand, Chimera Conspiracy and Sportgarten Bremen.

The Next tour stop of the Grindhouse Miniramp Masters will be on the 23d of Juli in Leipzig. Keep checking the contest website for more info!

Results Under 16 Category

1. Domenik Koch!
2. Gideon Hagen
3. Pascal Maluvues

Result 16 and Up Category

1. Sascha Winters
2. Sidney Hansen
3. Melvin Siemianowski

Results Overall

1. Sascha Winters
2. Domenik Koch!
3. Sidney Hansen

Ripstyle: Competitive!

The Intermission (featuring. Ava Graye) by tommy-PLUV

Photo Credits: Jay Evans

Old Western Medisun
The Group OWM: ‘Old Western medisun’ or ‘Western Meds’ references the combined geographical origin of the group; Tommy being from the UK, but growing up on the West Coast of America, and ‘eFF’ born and raised in the West Midlands, UK where Tommy also originally resides from.
The two met at at a sound check of an upcoming gig and got to talking about their respective projects. Tommy immediately picked up on Adam’s enthusiasm for Hip-Hop and his knowledge of the genre, and after finding out that Adam was currently searching for a voice for his tracks, of which he was yet to find, it was decided that the two would meet up after the show and talk more, and later form the collaboration that is ‘OWM’.
The groups sound is as varied as you’ll hear in modern Hip-Hop, with ‘eFF’ intent on exploring various avenues when comprising his beats. The Album, “Ten Paces At Dawn” promises to be a diverse project with tracks ranging from real West Coast bangers, to Smooth jams, and the essential boom bap sound of the East Coast.

www.facebook.com/oldwesternmedisun
www.oldwesternmedisun.com
http://www.twitter.com/OWMedisun
www.reverbnation.com/oldwesternmedisun

Tommy P.
Tommy.PLUV, real name Thomas Prendergast, was Born in England before moving to Orange County, California at the young age of 12. With the move came a new perspective, he was raised at the skatepark, grindin rails and breaking bones, listening to Underground and West Coast Rap music, and rollin with the crew he is still affiliated with today “The Rock Killers”. It was his respect for Hip-Hop that first got Tommy to pick up a pen and write. With the philosophy that if you listened to enough good music and have a passion for it, there’s no reason you can’t emulate that thing you love in your own style.
Upon returning to the UK, Tommy has been putting a lot of time into his music, whilst holding down a 9-5 to pay the bills any spare chance he gets he’s jottin’ down a few bars or rushing home on a lunch break to lay down an idea for a verse.
Like a lot of real cats in the game, Tommy writes about what he knows, about his own experiences and life from his cross-cultured perspective. He leaves the gun talking and gold chains to the experts and doesn’t concern himself with the growing trends of wealth and power that seem to dominate modern Rap culture. His eazy-going personality shines through constantly in the laid back vibe of most of his lyrics and the attitude towards the way he rhymes. Most of his energy is spent on exercising his penchant for wordplay and making you think about the things you maybe taking for granted in life, and tryin’ to drop some knowledge of some people taking things a little too seriously.
Shout out to “the Rock killers” and sponsors “Ripstyle-Brand” and “Kallusive Clothing”.

http://www.facebook.com/tommyPLUVmusic
http://soundcloud.com/tommy-pluv
http://www.oldwesternmedisun.com
http://www.kilnartist-media.com
http://www.reverbnation.com/tommyp
http://www.twitter.com/tommypluv
http://www.myspace.com/kilnartistmedia
http://www.youtube.com/kilnartistmedia
http://www.rockillers.com

Mista-eFF
Mista-eFF aka Adam Foster is a Producer from the West Midlands, UK. Adam Grew up with 2 brothers both of whom are heavily influenced by music and both of which played a part of passing that passion onto their youngest brother. Both resident Dj’s, 1 brother canedrive is an established, well respected producer in the UK whilst the other is part of the popular ’2damncheeky’ Dj duo in New York City.
This subsequently meant  ’eFF’ was around real heads from a young age and was bought up with it running through his veins. He Started off by Collecting vinyl and Dj’ing electronic dance music, then began producing music of the same genre. After some heavy hip hop, soul, jazz,  and funk exposure he has since found his calling and has never looked back. ‘eFF’ is now the producer component of the emcee/producer collaboration that is ‘Old Western Medisun’ also featuring Emcee Tommy-P. A real Perfectionist with an extensive knowledge of Hip-Hop ‘Mista-eFF’ is a producer who you probably haven’t have heard of yet but is bound to be breaking onto the scene and making a name for himself in the near future.
Producer Influences Include; DJ Premier, Pete Rock, J Dilla, large professor, damu the fudgemunk, grap luva, da beat miners,statik selektah, q tip, Marley marl, prince Paul, Eric b, alchemist, rza, Erick sermon, kev brown, marco polo, dr dre, Scott la rock, Jake one, ayatollah, 9th wonder, m phazes, j rawls, 14kt, havoc… Just to name a few!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mista-eFF
http://soundcloud.com/mista-eff
www.oldwesternmedisun.com

Ava Graye
The last piece to the ‘OWM’ puzzle was finding a female vocalist who would fit the bill. The Collab needed someone with the right sound to compliment the heavy soul influence present on Adam’s tracks, and a mask for Tommy’s Cali-Flow. That void was filled in the slender frame of the sassy brunette ‘Ava Graye’ -real name, Amy Williams, an up and coming singer from the area.
Ava fit right into the group and made her presence felt with immediate effect at the first recording session. Ava, however delicate she may appear, has an amazing presence on the mic and an immensely powerful voice that will blow you away. Listen out for Ava on the new album and upcoming solo efforts in the near future.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ava-Graye
www.oldwesternmedisun.com

Ripstyle: Collaborative.

Happy happy, joy joy! It has been a while since we passed the submission deadline of the Ripstyle & Rollernews Innovation Challenge, but finally the time is here. We coordinated with our international skate team, went through all entries, and now the results are in: we can announce the winners!

The winners of the 2011 Ripstyle & Rollernews Innovation Challenge are:

Drum Roll!….

1. Scott Dawda!
2. Michael Briggs.
3. David Michel.

The winners will be contacted shortly about their Ripstyle prize packages.

Ripstyle and Rollernews thank all who got off their butts, and took on the challenge to try and create something new for rollerblading and themselves! We are proud of you: keep progressing!

This is the winning entry by Scott Dawda:

Ripstyle: still kicking!

On the ninth of July, it is time for the third edition of the Rock the Garden Miniramp Rollerblading contest. This year the contest is an official stop in the Grindhouse Miniramp Serie 2011, and will take place in the german city of Bremen, at the skate park that is also the training grounds of local ripper and Ripstyle sponsored, young rollerblading gun, Domenik Koch.

The doors of the Sportgarten open at 10:00, the contest starts at 13:00, and lasts till 20:00.  Word on the street is that there might also be some BBQ involved!

Participants can sign up here: http://www.miniramp-masters.de/anmeldung/

The event is powered by XSK8.de, Be-Mag, Grindhouse, SAG Sport 2, Dom Seven, You Messe, Ripstyle Brand, Chimera Conspiracy and Sportgarten Bremen.

Ripstyle Rollerblading hero, Domenik Koch, preparing for Rock the Garden.

Official Sportgarten website: http://www.sportgarten.de/index.php?id=93
Official Grindhouse Miniramp Masters page: http://www.miniramp-masters.de

Here is an impression of last years edition of Rock the Garden:Miniramp Masters Bremen, Rock the Garden from Benni Momentz on Vimeo.

Ripstyle: Hopeful

Sadly this is their last issue. Balance Rolling Magazine had a short, but good life and the creator is moving on to do better, more useful things with his life. We really do hope there will be more positive initiatives like Balance Magazine from within the tiny, closed, lazy-assed, self-hating, homoerotic, underground community that is Rollerblading.

Dear Rollerbladers: rollerblading rules, but you suck! Your starship is heading for the sun, turn that turd around now!

Oh!, and for f**k’s sake, stop taking yourselves so seriously!

Romain Zwahlen is the latest addition to the Ripstyle Golf team. A motivated individual from France with a love for colourful golf shoes, music and most of all his family. We welcome him in our midst, and to give you a little bit of an idea who he is, we asked him some questions:

First of all, tell us what attracted you to Ripstyle Golf?
The first time I saw a Ripstyle Product was in a Magazine, and it was the Blitz Green model. I am really fond of shoes and I think it is really nice to have shoes coloured like that to play golf!

You seem like a very headstrong individual, does this help in Golf?
For sure. I think it is important to be strong in the head, but I am not really an individual person because I think that sharing experiences with others has always helped me to improve in golf and also in life. I think that the main thing is to be yourself on the course to play well in golf.

Other than Golf, what other interests do you have?
I’m interested in music, soccer and more than everything taking care of my son.

If you could pick any course to play on, which one would it be and why?
I’d like to play Augusta National during the Masters, because I think it’s one of the most difficult courses in the world and to play it under pressure must be really cool!

What do you think about more and more people getting involved in Golf?
I think that the more people we can get involved in golf, the better it will be for this sport.
To develop our sport in Europe we need to get the interest of as many people as possible.

What is your your main goal for this season?
I would like to play on the challenge tour with a full category for the next season.

How important is family to you?
I think that it is really important for me, because it is my balance in life and I know that everything can happen. I’ll always have my family on my side.

Ripstyle Brand incorporates many different Lifestyles and Sports into one company do you see this as a trend in the future?
I think that a brand must be everywhere to be well known, and it is good to have people from different backgrounds to make an emulation and an improvement for a company.

If you never had picked up a golfclub, what would have been your passion?
I think if golf wasn’t here I’d like to be a DJ.

What is the strongest part of your game, and the weakest?
I don’t really have a strongest part in my game but i think that my concistency can be my trump card. I think that the weakness in my game is that I sometimes have a lack of concentration that can cost a lot on the scorecard at the end.

What is your favorite Ripstyle Shoe Style?
I really love the Blitz Blue.

The Ripstyle Golf Bliz blue shoe. Available in our webshop!

Larry Hawthorne aka “The Original Lady Killer” hails from Flint, Michigan. As coming from the gritty violent streets of Flint, Larry knew the paths of the streets was a dead end after witnessing the murder of a friend and decided to find another path to travel, as Larry started out as a freestyle dancer with styles that range from Tap to Urban Hip Hop; however this wasn’t enough to quench the thirst of being on stage and he wrote, produced and performed on his first CD titled “Here’s 2 U” capturing the attention of major labels in Germany but that was to be short lived.

As a rapper Larry performed mostly on the underground circuit performing with German artists such as Afrob, Cora E, Stieber Twins, Microphone Mafia, etc. Labels offered Larry contracts; however the signings never occurred and Larry started writing for other artists, his track “Hype Like Dynamite” made its way into South Africa and became the music for a beer commercial. He also struck gold when his dance track “Vamos Ala Playa” entered the Dutch charts at No. 79 which was written by Larry and produced by Adam Schaier and Nino Tielmann for BMG Ariola.

Larry also wrote an uncredited track “Lucky” for East-West records and it was recorded by American Rapper Kurtis Blow for Public Attack records a defunct label from Frankfurt Germany.

Larry was scheduled to go on tour with Toni Braxton and fate intervened but it was in Larry’s eyes the best thing that happened, Larry’s manager had a stroke which caused Larry to be scrapped from the tour; however it was then that Larry when to the US and met Babyface at a trade show and the hour long talk inspired Larry to write more songs which has accumulated over 450 tracks written by Larry.

Specializing in ballads Larry moniker “The Lady Killer” was born when Larry performed at the German Open and introduced his ballad “One More Try” and got a 5 minute standing ovation. As an innovator Larry performs hiphop mixed with rock and soul mixed with rock. His voice has landed him on RTL II, SWR, KIKA, ARD, ZDF, and other local tv stations. Larry has also performed for radio events KISS FM-Berlin, Jam FM-Berlin, NRJ, BIG FM, RADIO Regenbogen, RPR1, Radio Ton, RMB Radio-Saarbrücken, ect.

Larry’s “Baby Come On Dance 4 Me” stayed six months on many internet radio station in the top 5 for six months, even RMB Radio named his 2007 performance the “Best Live Performance of the Year”.

Larry first major sponsoring came via Larry’s introduction of Karlis Bowman to Ripstyle Brand and now with the buzz being created about his upcoming single/video “My Exxxtasy” and the addition of Benjamin Shade as official choreographer, the sky’s the limit for Larry…..

Toot Ya Horn Productions
c/o Larry Eugene Hawthorne II
Postfach 1223,
D-67202 Frankenthal (Pfalz)
Tel: +49 6233 342 588
Mob: +49 176 376 62172

e-mail:
info@larry-hawthorne.com

web:
www.jamesbrownshow.com
www.larry-hawthorne.com

1. Roy, How long have you been a DJ, and what are your roots?
I have been a DJ since 1995, my roots come from break dancing because in the 80´s and 90´s, I was an active dancer. I bought the coolest Black music records I could get my hands on, 2 Technics turntables and a mixer to make my own music for the shows I was always doing at the time.

2. You have been associated with many international musicians, who was your favorite to work with?
Oh, good question, that was in fact many! I really can’t single one out as a favorite, there were so many different styles and personalities and most of them were and are still very good.

3. How do you see the progression of Hip Hop since you started?
I have been being asked this a lot lately. Hip Hop has become very commercial, it is a culture and cultures always evolve, Hip Hop is no different. many people do not really spend time to get to know what real Hip Hop is, most do not even know what it actually is! I see it with a smile and a frown, but this new “Pop Black Music” ala David Guetta has nothing at all to do with Hip Hop or Black Music. I have been living Hip Hop since 1984, I don’t know what that is, but it is not what I call Hip Hop.

4. If you had to choose music to do a legendary set of Hip Hop fanatics, what would be your favorite decade to choose music from? 80´s, 90´s, 00´s or 2010 +?
80s and 90s – no contest!

5. Who were your main influences coming up?
I love Music, it could be Rap, R&B, Ragga, House, Rock, Classical, Pop, whatever. Yeah, I make my money with Black Music, but I listen to everything as long as it is made well, and I try to let some of that flow into my sets, but, Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa, Sugarhill Gang, KRS-One have always fascinated me, and have moulded me. Flash is still a big WOW for me!

6. What was your reaction when Ripstyle offered you the chance to create your own Signature shoe?
Huge, as we say in German, “it was a Hammer” What DJs can claim to have their own Signature shoe? T-shirts, Stickers, Caps, Mixtapes, was stuff that every DJ had at one point or another, but a Signature shoe!?!? I almost fell out when I heard, the best thing though is that I am still able to give out T- shirts, Caps, and loads of promo stuff when I am in the club to my fans.

7. What can we look forward to in the “Ripstyle Party Series“?
Alongside the newest footwear trends in the Ripstyle Collection, there is a full program just waiting for the club people. Shows, Raffles, Giveaways, and Contests are a mainstay. MC Young 6ixx, a Rapper from Inglewood, California has the Rap Show locked down. A musical mix containing Hip Hop, R&B, Dancehall and House can be expected from DJ MX and myself. In addition, the heads over at Ripstyle Brand are preparing a portfolio to bring over some stateside talent they support, here to Europe – for example Uprite Lions, Khari Pharoah Santiago, Tommy P, and even Ria Eaton, so we all have something special to look forward to.

8. What can we expect from Dj Roy Lefreak in the future?
Right now I am concentrating on Ripstyle Brand and DJing right now. I also should be working on my “25 years in Business Clubtour” that should have started at the beginning of 2011…but then, uh…Ripstyle came to be….haha, Just Kidding! It is really one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life. My projects with PPC soundsystem, and my new mixtape have to be out by summer, my clubfreaks are already waiting for it, as you can tell, a lot going on…but I LOVE IT!

9. Can you give us your website? or Myspace page?
Of course, for sure…mental note, my new webpage has to get done as well haha….
www.facebook.com/officialdjroylefreak
squad.dj-league.eu/dj-roy-le-freak
www.ppc-productions.de
www.youtube.com/MegaLEFREAK
www.twitter.com/djroylefreak
www.myspace.com/djroylefreak

10. Anyone you would like to shout out?
Yeah, the whole world! well, I normally dont like this part, you know “make sure you dont forget anyone!” but ok, off the top of my head – My One and Only Lady Rita, my family, my real friends, the PPC Crew, the 100 Friends Crew, Franky and the Heftig Crew, All my Lovers and Haters, Ripstyle Brand, and sorry if I forgot anyone, but if I continue the list would be longer than the interview! Peace, Roy Le Freak

We recently sent the guys over at itsNOTFORgirls a pair of Neon Fluorescents
to check out, they made a video and some pictures and profiled us on their
site:
http://www.itsnotforgirls.com/ripstyle-brand-neon-fluorescent-hightops-simply-great-shoes/. 

They describe themselves as follows:  We are a team of fashion enthusiasts
who aim to bring you the best products available in mens fashion. We will
show you exclusives, as well as what your favourite celebrities are wearing.

Well, it does not get more exclusive than Ripstyle Brand! We are at the
beginning of our evolution and are going through the growing pains of any
new company that is persistent on making something great.

Special Thanks to Kieran Flanagan for the great communication and interest
in our brand. http://www.itsnotforgirls.com

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIfMmO