Summertime Mixtape Vol. 8 – Sage Elsesser and Kenny Anderson, ‘Purple’

The ‘Cherry’ class of 2014 has a steely-eyed SOTY, a movie star, and a seven-day-weekender, so Sage Elsesser’s segue into an old-head role seems just fine, as long as he doesn’t permanently hang up his board in favor of his musical career. The dude’s imperial pop and frontside-leaning body contortions on his lipslides and tailslides helped Ben Chadbourne mix up the styles in Converse’s 2018 full-length and avoid the repetitiveness that bogged down ‘Away Days,’ though the height blasted on some of the tricks here, like the chest-high heelflip over the sidewalk gap or the fence 50-50, borders on cartoonish. Put Sage Elsesser on the unspoken list of those who can get away with street grabs, and Kenny Anderson, in the smooth chaser role here, on the one that permits 180s in the middle of manual tricks to be done by certain persons at certain times, in accordance with certain permits.

Tags: Converse, embankments, Los Angeles High School, Navy Blue, nose bone, ollies over tall poles, Purple, Sage Elsesser