Devine Calloway and Marek Zaprazny in ‘Fellas’
Out of the 30 or so names listed on that Hélas ‘Fellas’ ad we had in the mag, the one we were the most surprised to see was definitely Devine Calloway. We were obviously aware of his reappearance on the scene with Primitive but how he ended up linking with Lucas’ gang was a complete mystery. In fact so was everything to do with the said reappearance, including what led to him seemingly ‘disappear’ in the first place… So we hit him up!
I’m going to start with the one you must get all the time… Around the mid-to late 2000s, you skated for DC and Chocolate, always had coverage in magazines, videos… Then until you got on Primitive in 2016 we didn’t see very much of you. Why is that?
Ha ha, I still get asked to this day about what happen. So I had some stuff going on with DC at the time… I was kind of getting pressured to quit by someone in the office, so I disappeared off the map for a bit to get out of my contract. Which I didn’t actually want to leave… No disrespect to Etnies at all, I had a pretty good time over there too but I had a lot of good things going on for me at DC! But some people felt like they weren’t getting what they should and left and wanted me to go too. So I left. Then in late 2010 I dislocated my ankle really badly, for about two months I tried to keep skating but couldn’t, the ankle wasn’t getting any better. At that point I’d never really had any bad injuries, just bumps bruises and rolled ankles ha ha. I thought I just had a really bad hot pocket in my ankle but went to the doctor just to be safe ’cause it didn’t seem to be getting better. She looked at it and thought I’d just jammed it but took some X-rays to be safe. When she came back into the room after she took the X-rays, she was as white as a ghost. And she was already pretty pale ha ha, but she really came back looking sick. I asked if everything was ok and she said no, she didn’t understand how I was walking, and that I shouldn’t be because all of my metatarsals were dislocated. Long story short, she sent me to three specialists and they all said they could put my foot back together but I wouldn’t be able to skate anymore. I was pretty shook at this point and kind of gave up. But she sent me to one last one and eureka ha ha! This one said he could fix it, that I wouldn’t have full movement but just enough to where I should be able to skate! It took about a year before I could push around but eventually I was able to fully skate again.
How did it end with Chocolate?
With Chocolate it was mutual thing… Since I got hurt and wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be able to fully skate again and they were putting on new dudes so they needed to cut my check to pay some of them, which I fully understood and was ok with. Sammy (Smyth) always said I would have a place there when ever I felt like I was good again. Love everyone of at Crail! They took super good care of me while I was there!
Was there a period when you didn’t skate at all? If so how long? Did you pick up any other hobbies? What were you doing for work?
I didn’t skate for about a year and a half when I got hurt. I was just playing a lot of NBA2k11 at the time and making lowrider model cars, making shoe colourways on the computer and sipping a lot of coffee. Not the kind you brew but the kind you pull up softly ha ha, for y’all that listen to Devin The Dude, y’all know what I’m talking about ha ha.
My sponsors took care of me for a while when I was hurt but I ended up moving back home and getting a few jobs; I worked for a skate shop part time and a tv cable company.
During that period were there points where you’d completely given up on the idea of being a sponsored skater?
Yeah after I moved back home and started working, I pretty much gave up on the idea of being sponsored. I still skated a lot but just wasn’t really think about being sponsored, was just having fun, skating to skate.
Was there anything you missed about it?
I mostly missed travelling the world with friends and making new friends… Experiencing different cultures and skating stuff I’d seen in videos as a kid.
Were you paying attention to what was going on in skating?
I wasn’t really paying too much attention to what was going on I was just working to get by and having fun skating when I could. I had a beautiful baby girl around this time to so was mostly thinking about her and how many diapers and baby food she was gonna need each week ha ha. I love my daughter more than anything! She is my world and more. She is all of my dimensions combined! Ha ha sorry had to talk about her a little bit.
But I’d always watch old videos like all the old World vids and Mouse! Those always motivated me to skate and still do to this day!
And I didn’t feel the game change too much, just some new faces. I hope one day they start doing health insurance for skaters and stuff like that, so dudes can have longer careers and not have to worry about getting hurt as much.
Tell us a bit about getting back into it… Were you friends with Paul Rodriguez the whole time? Was he pushing you to give it another shot?
Well that skate shop I was working for at the time was getting ready to shut down and Heath Brinkley was working for Primitive at the time and said there might be a opportunity at the Primitive shop they had down south at the time. So I said I was down! It was hard because I was going back and forth from Bakersfield to the Valley to work, only getting to see my little one a couple days a week. It was super hard but they were paying me pretty good to work at the shop and I didn’t have too many job opportunities like that back home. plus I was staying at Paul’s TF he had at the time so was able to skate there a lot. Heath and Paul saw that I was still skating a lot and said there could be a spot on the board brand if I worked for it and proved hat I deserved it. Which I tried to do… I don’t really think I deserved it but they put me on, which I’m very thankful for.
Do you skate full time at the moment or do you have a job on the side?
I’m skating full time at the moment but probably gonna have to start working pretty soon.
How did you end up on Hélas?
So my brotha and main man Peaks plugged me in with the source ha ha. That’s Brian Peacock by the way ha ha; very thankful he linked me with Stephen (Khou)! Been nothing but mad love!
Who has your favourite footage in the video?
Of course I’ve got to pick my brotha Peaks but everyone went bananas! So honoured to be in this with all these kings! My grand kids gonna be showing their grand kids this one ha ha.
Are you working on anything at the moment? Any Devine Calloway footage coming our way in the near future?
Gonna be working on a couple things so keep your eyes peeled ha ha. Can’t wait to be working on another Hélas joint too! Let’s keep these hits coming Fellas!
