2. Miles Silvas – ‘Numbers Edition 3’

Realistically, which is to say in the realm of reality, track pants movement-pusher Miles Silvas made this list, inconsequential as it is, with just the knee drop after the switch frontside bluntslide in this part. The depth of his talent and taste though means he delivers another fulsome video part of his uncommonly singular style and near-peerless choice in tricks — in just the first minute here he’s got a backside bigspin the hard way over a handrail, a backside noseblunt at a tough-to-recommend speed, and Cam’ron. Nobody really is landing tricks like this dude (see: the hubba kickflip backside tailside roll-away, or after the switch backside heelflip over the bar) and there’s not so many who measure up when it comes to mind-bending backside tailslides in general, variations on which this part is sort of built around. Quibbling is restricted to how Miles Silvas seems to have toned down his outfits from the LRG pattern wars.

We Travel Back In Time To The Year 2006 For A Cautionary Tale About Beef, Wisdom and Standing Your Ground (That Also References Big Punisher [RIP 1971 – 2000])

It was the fall of 2006. Americans were marking one year since the devastating hurricane-floods in the South, the unlikely St. Louis Cardinals stunned the baseball world by winning it all over the Detroit Cardinals, and Shawn Carter was laying the groundwork for an un-retirement by racing autos in beer commercials and, later, selling beef. Several months beforehand, Cam’ron had twice done the once-unthinkable in one swoop, releasing a sort of shitty album and targeting his former boss Jay-Z in an extended dis record that made suggestive remarks and accused Jay-Z of copying raps off of others. The then-retired rap music mogul ultimately crushed Cam with a surprisingly effective weapon, silence. The message was that the “Purple Haze” emcee did not rise to his level.

Flash forward to the fall-time, when Jay-Z is prepping his return. Following attacks by ascendant Killa protege Jim Jones, Jay-Z threw caution to the wind and recorded a response over the by-then acclaimed Jim Jones single “We Fly High” — an eyebrow-raising move that proved catastrophic when Jimmy hours later utterly buried Jay-Z by basically giggling and randomly commenting over S. Carter’s version, turning in some rhymes and a mothballed Juelz Santana verse and general trash-talking. Jay-Z went on to release some albums that sorta diminished his legacy while marrying Beyonce and befriending the guy from Coldplay and other celebs, elevating his net worth to nearly $1 billion.

Yet as he lies asleep on his solid gold bed, next to his megastar-model spouse, fingers aching from counting his riches, belly full of expensive hamburgers, you have to wonder if his eyes remain open, teeth grinding as his mind echoes with Jim Jones’ comments about Big Pun whacking him in the head with a Cristal bottle in a club all those years ago, and wondering if things could have turned out different.