Emilio Dufour – Nini
Without wanting to go full “Skateboarding doesn’t owe you shit. It owes you wheelbite in the rain.” here, it needs to be pointed out that it’s not every day we come across someone like Emilio, who despite being undeniably gifted, genuinely expects nothing from his favourite pastime other than enough stimulation to keep wanting to do it. Of course, part of that probably just comes from him being an inherently humble person, but then there’s also a certain level of self-awareness that maybe stems from growing up in a part of the world where playing with your skateboard simply isn’t a realistic career path, where you don’t just put all your eggs in one extremely precarious basket.
To give you an idea of the energy I’m trying to describe here, before I’d even had a chance to ask my first question he’d broken the ice by thanking us for hosting this project, explaining that it was an honour, especially in the context of all the incredible skating that he’d seen released lately. Something that in itself may not sound like much, but never happens. Now whether that’s because skateboarding is by nature so personal that it’s impossible not to become self-absorbed or if it has more to do with sponsored skaters having cameras pointed at them all day is a debate for another time, but it was definitely refreshing to come across someone this talented who had no problem whatsoever zooming out and seeing the bigger picture. Could it have to do with him doing some camera-wielding of his own? Either way, it set the tone for a chat that I thoroughly enjoyed, touching on everything from Mike Carroll’s influence on his trick selection to how a certain Afro-Uruguyan drum beat lives rent-free in his head. Get stuck in.
Interview by Arthur Derrien
Okay, so am I correct in thinking that you’re originally from Florida, Uruguay, but currently live in Montevideo, the capital?
Yeah, I’ve been living here in Montevideo since I finished high school. I came here to start university. I’ve been here for like 11 years or something now.
And how did you end up linking up with Buenos Aires’ Tomás Scicchitano, (the mastermind behind the Delivery videos we regularly post) for this project?
Firstly, Buenos Aires is only a three-hour ferry away from here and both cities are culturally very similar… I’ve been coming to Buenos Aires my whole life. And for maybe like four years now I’ve been regularly going over there to skate with those guys – the Delivery crew. Tomás is the filmer and then he has a big crew of like 10 guys around him, guys like Eze Martinez and Andrew Gray that you probably know.
So, yeah, I mean, I guess it was about time to make something of the connection between the two cities because both scenes have always been small but strong in a way, at least in terms of their audiovisual output, with stuff always coming out of both cities… Only now it feels like there’s a little bit more communication between the two, which is cool.
Plus Tomás has been doing such a good job of making the scene in Buenos Aires look sick, I really trust his vision. It’s cool to be able to work with somebody like that, especially when you get involved in the editing process. He really listens to me and we feed off each other well. And obviously, he’s cool to hang with and talk shit with haha. Looking forward to collaborating on more projects with him.
Do those guys make it over to Montevideo much?
Yeah… They’ve started coming a bit over the last two years but they’re harder to get here. People from Buenos Aires seem to be trapped in that city… Even though Montevideo is way cooler, haha.
Oh yeah haha? What because it’s less blown out you mean?
Yeah I mean of course it’s less blown out, but it’s not like Buenos Aires is blown out either though. Like you can find skate spots anywhere there and in the last like five years these guys have discovered so many. It’s not like they’re skating your typical nine stair, you know?
And why do I think Montevideo is cooler? I don’t know, like every time I travel around the world, seeing different cities and whatever I always think to myself that Montevideo is the perfect size city when I come back to it. Culturally it’s really active, it has a bunch of things to do, it’s really good to skate on weekdays… And I’m also not from here, so I’ve already moved from a smaller town and have that feeling of having moved to the big city. But yeah, I’d recommend it: come to Montevideo whenever, it’s sick.
And so was this project predominantly filmed between Montevieo and Buenos Aires then? Feel like I spotted some LA in the mix there too…
I’ve been filming this for like a year and a half, maybe two years now, during which I’ve done a bunch of trips. Like, there are some random Costa Rica clips in there, two or three tricks I filmed in LA… But yeah it’s mostly Montevideo and Buenos Aires, plus some other cities in Argentina. The dynamic would be that I’d try to think of a bunch of ideas for when Tomás comes over, then he’d stay and I’d get stuff with him for like a week or something, then I’d go over to Buenos Aires for like two months or something…
Damn, two months at a time?!
Yeah because I used to work remotely as a Salesforce Administrator… But I was travelling so much that I ended up getting fired from the company a year and a half ago and got a bunch of money from that, which I’ve been living off since!
So living the pro skater dream off a severance package. Love it.
Yeah… And it’s been fun, but I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I’ve got to start working again soon. I had few interviews last week…
But I’ve been trying to be smart with the little bit of money I have left, like trying to make it last and going back to university to finish my degree in economics. I just have a semester with three subjects left to pass… Been doing a lot of Math classes. That’s actually where I was just before this.
Which leads me nicely to my next question… There was a time in skating where Europeans were migrating en masse to California because it was kind of the only way to “make it”, but when you ask European pros about that now the answer you often get is the industry has changed so much with YouTube and Instagram and the way information travels that you can “make it” no matter where you are based, which always makes me laugh because… Well, tell us how it feels from where you’re sitting right now in Uruguay.
I mean, making it in the skate industry these days means being able to pay rent and buy food from skating, right?
Yeah…
Yeah well if you’re right here, Uruguay-based, of course, there’s absolutely there’s no way to “make it” then. It’s a really small country of three million people. Even brands like Vans have no budget here to pay skaters to skate, that’s it. You just can’t make money from skating here. The only way you could maaaaaybe somehow make money is by organising some kind of big mainstream skate event or something, but even then… Like even having a shop is really hard… So yeah my answer is that there’s absolutely no way to do it here.
And of course, sure, I’ve been trying to figure it out too, if the skate thing could work… But also fuck it, like, nobody got into skating for the money. It is what it is.
Plus I film videos myself. I’ve put out some videos over the years, and I’m working on a video which Vans Argentina and Uruguay are putting a little bit of budget towards, which is also one of the reasons I’m able to do this semester at university.
And I am in contact with Vans in the US a bit, and they help me out with plane tickets and stuff… But I’m in a weird place because I’m not always up there, of course… And skating is weird, like you can easily get a plane ticket to anywhere, which is great, but then it’s like man, don’t have money to eat. It’s just really hard to get cash haha.
Switch 50-50. Photo: Andrew Gray.
Someone mentioned that alongside everything we’ve discussed, you’re also heavily involved in the music scene in Montevideo… Do you play in a band? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
So the music scene here in Montevideo is huge and really rich and in the few years since the pandemic, the alternative music scene in particular has been popping off. Like, I go to see bands play twice a week, I know a bunch of homies that have bands and do gigs… It’s a really cool scene. And I play bass in a band called Bordeadora (which translates to “Edger”), it’s been two years now. We rehearse every week but we’ve only played like five times so we’re not exactly an active band really… But we’re trying to record our first record.
We draw inspiration from stoner rock, psychedelic rock and metal and mix that with candombe, which is this Uruguayan folklore music that’s played with drums. It’s like a drum beat that people have been mixing with Jazz and stuff since the ’70s. There’s a whole branch of cool musicians making that kind of music in Uruguay. It’s kind of a beat that just exists in your brain all the time somehow.
And I don’t know, I’m just really into it, it’s been really fun. Because I’ve been skating for 20 plus years, and right now, all these years in, I don’t think about it in the same way as I did when I first started and it’s harder for me to use it to get away from life, just because I’ve been doing it so much. With music, I’ve been getting that release. I could go four hours playing with the boys and completely lose track of time and everything else. It’s a really cool feeling, so yeah I definitely plan to keep doing that.
The reason I was asking you about all that is because I realised that your last “Out Of Office” part (which was five minutes long and also completely bonkers) came out only a year ago, which is extra wild considering all the other shit you’ve got going on. Like do you live a super healthy lifestyle or something? What’s your secret?
Yeah I mean that last one led to me being permanently out of office though haha, so that helped.
And I don’t know, I just like staying active… But I feel like everyone around me here is like that. Even if they aren’t skating they’re constantly onto something else.
What does “Toro” mean in Emilio slang?
Haha Toro is bull and it means being buff, but in every aspect of life. Like when someone is fucking it up or something you’re like “bro, you’ve got to Toro up”.
Haha and “Nini”?
Nini is Spanish slang for not studying nor working (ni estudia, ni trabaja). This part was filmed in my Nini period, between getting fired from my job and enrolling back in university.
Backside 180 nosegrind. Photo: Andrew Gray.
I wanted to chat to you about your influences in skating a bit, mainly because the fact that you watch a lot of skating kind of shows in the part. It feels like there was a conscious effort to film stuff that feels new, sometimes drawing inspiration from different eras…
Yeah I mean I pretty much watch everything, but recently I’ve been really stoked on seeing how people are aging… Seeing grown men skate, like Bobby Worrest, fuck, it’s the best. Like some of those guys are still in their prime, if feels like they could still film any part from their past, and are choosing to skate how they skate now… Right now it’s seeing guys that are in their late 30s really filter and think about what they put out that gets me hyped to keep going.
How old are you?
29. And I’m not saying I can’t get hyped watching a teenager skate, some of the stuff younger dudes put out is really refreshing. But like late ’90s and early 2000s stuff is what really gets me hyped right now, like Brian Wenning! Dude, best lines ever. Just makes you want to get some lines and skate a cool plaza… And it’s hard to do that kind of skating, or at least do it right. Most of the time you have to get to a plaza and skate it for like three days before you can actually film something.
Yeah I feel like you have to skate a plaza to the point where you actually really enjoy it before you can even begin to start thinking about filming something. If you rock up like, “okay I’m going to switch back tail that first one, then carve around this block, then hit that…” before having a proper session you tend to get too caught up in your head and it doesn’t work out.
Yeah you’ve just got to noseslide and 50-50 the whole plaza for one day straight, just skating around… I love doing that.
We’ve actually been fixing this plaza here… There’s a clip from it in the video, I do a quick kickflip manny then this frontside noseslide on a weird…
Oh yeah I know the one, that place looks fucked, haha.
Dude so the thing with that spot – which is called Plaza Portuaria – is that the roots of the trees started growing and tearing up all these different parts of the ground, and all those platforms and ledges. So where there was once normal ledges all these weird shapes have formed. There’s a bunch of different things to skate there now and no one bothers you. We’ve been going skate there a bunch, like fixing the ledges and stuff, and it’s been fun.There’s going to be a little section of that place in this video I’m filming.
We don’t really have an iconic plaza that people know and come to skate, so trying to make it this place that haha.
Frontside noseslide. photo: Andrew Gray.
Haha I love that. Looks like it would be so hard to skate even without Mother Nature tampering with it, let alone in this state. “Okay it’s not quite Pulaski ground, and sure the ledges are liiiitle wonky, but come on let’s make this work.” How do skaters from other parts of the world react when you take them to your spots?
Dude, a couple of years ago Thrasher did a trip to Buenos Aires and Montevideo and those dudes were tripping on how rough the spots were haha. Like Casper Brooker just looked so bummed every time we took him to a spot, haha. I’m a big fan of his skating so it only just added to the mystique to be honest, but I just remember taking him to this curved ledge he’d kept asking about, knowing very well he wouldn’t skate it just from the other spots he wasn’t feeling on the trip, and him just rolling up to it two or three times and throwing his board away.
Haha, like ”I can’t work with this”.
Yeah pretty much haha.
Haha, so nice. In London we love to pride ourselves in the fact that we’re used to skating these really sketchy spots or whatever, but then whenever a crew from South America comes over it’s always pretty humbling.
Coming back to your influences, I wanted to ask you about one clip in particular, the switch backside 5-0 to backlip, which was maybe my favourite thing in there. Felt like a modern twist on a mini-ramp classic…
Dude I’m so stoked you mentioned that one! I started doing regular 5-0 to backlips after seeing a random clip of Mike Carroll doing one on a mini-ramp, first on banks, then on ledges… And I’ve been doing switch backside 5-0s on ledges a lot over the years and just thought to myself, “Has anyone ever done one of these?”
I mean I doubt it, I can’t even think of a regs one on a ledge off the top of my head…
I think Spanky does like a 5-0 backlip shuv maybe.
Okay yeah that does ring a bell…
But yeah I’ve just been trying to think of little things I’ve not really seen out yet. Like the nollie heelflip to fs 5-0 to fakie is another one…
Yeah that is a pretty random one. It feels that one must have been done before in a line but then I can’t really think of any famous examples…
Yeah. The problem is, because I think about stuff like this, when I’m watching new videos that come out I’m constantly thinking okay, this guy’s about to do a nollie heel fs 5-0 to fakie, here we go…
Haha, that sounds like it would ruin the experience a bit.
Yeah, it’s bad haha. The one I get it the most with is the ender of this part, the nollie flip darkslide. I filmed that one six months ago maybe and people have been doing a lottttt of darkslides recently, haha.
What’s the deal with you and Eze getting on Hardbody? How did that come about? Also I heard this footage was meant to go towards a shared part with him, what happened there?
Ok so this part was initially supposed to be like a shared project with Eze, in HD, but then the Hardbody connection happened.
I met E.J (Emilio Cuilan) on a Vans X Quartersnacks trip that he was filming in Buenos Aires and he offered to send me some boards but I kind of just said, “thanks, I’ll keep that in mind” at the time as I was getting boards from someone over here. But then at some point when I was in LA I ran out of boards so I hit him up and he came through, and then kept it going with a few boxes… We stayed in touch texting and he kept saying how we should link. Meanwhile Eze was always saying how he really wanted to go to New York, so we ended up going together, staying in his house and filming VX a bunch, and that kind of became the “shared project”.
What’s crazy is that when he first started giving me boards I was like, this guy is cool, I like what he does, but I don’t really know what to expect… Then after four months of getting boxes it was like, “okay Antonio is pro for Harbody. Hjalte is pro for Hardbody.” It was pretty crazy…
We did a trip to Miami with everyone a few months ago which should be out soon.
But anyway me and Eze have been travelling a lot together over the last three years, even outside of Hardbody projects and we get along and understand each other so well, I think it felt natural for E.J to put us both on. We even shared a bed once when we were on tour…
Sounds like destiny.
Yeah, we’re a power couple haha.
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