Skate Lagos: Rolling With the City's Skateboarders

Skateboarding in Lagos
Lagos is home to a burgeoning skate scene – one that comes with its own set of identifiers and challenges. Skateboarding in Lagos is flourishing, with a young but rapidly growing community of skaters. In a city without state-of-the-art skate parks or ideal street conditions, the skaters tap into the DIY spirit at the heart of skateboarding.

Meet Lagos skateboarding trailblazers and hear why the scene is so exciting.

The Motherlan family are young, uncompromising and unapologetic. Their t-shirt graphics play with self-aware notions of African identity.

Here they give their insights to Lagos' street scene.

How do you describe skateboarding in Lagos?
The skate scene in Lagos is unique. Really there's no spots or skateparks to skate, so you have to be really creative with what you do. People see spots in other countries and they just skate it – you can't do that in Lagos, there's a lot of improvising, so that's where the style comes from as well.

Are there any challenges that are unique to skateboarding in Nigeria?
There are a couple challenges – skating is misunderstood in Africa, like, if you skate you're seen as unserious or a delinquent because everyone expects you to aspire to be a doctor or banker or something. Skating is just a piece of wood on wheels to people, but we're gonna change that.

What can you tell us about the creative energy in Lagos right now?
The creative community in Lagos is crazy, there’s some weird energy. It’s very easy to misunderstand but also really easy to fall in love with. It’s just the chaos that makes everything kind of work together, cause that's what every Lagosian can relate to. So regarding the creative scene a lot of us just put out what we feel: chaos. It’s chaos!

Meet the team behind skate shop WAFFLESNCREAM
Together with his team, Jomi Marcus-Bello established Lago's first skate shop, WAFFLESNCREAM. Since launching they've become champions of the scene and a home to skaters, supporting the movement both in Lagos and abroad. Homecoming and WAFFLESNCREAM worked together over Easter 2019 to bring skaters across Lagos together. This was part of a larger community effort by WAFFLESNCREAM who are currently fundraising to build Lagos' first skate park.