Akwasi only recently started venturing outside the U.S. on skate trips after getting his passport in 2022. He’s checked off places like France and Japan with the Asics team, and as seen in the latest Atlantic Drift video, Austria and Hungary. We invited him over to spend a week in another bucket-list location of his – the city of Berlin. We showed him around over the course of a couple mostly rainy days, watched him create his own souvenirs using all the tools in his bag, and chatted about life, skateboarding, the arts, and where his travel budget will take him next.
I chose Berlin because I’d never been here before and I just wanted to check it off my list. I like the adventure, I guess, of seeing a place I haven’t been.
It’s been really cool. We've had pretty crappy weather, but regardless, it’s been good. There's a lot of art around the city, which is pretty cool. That’s something I notice about Europe – the amount of public art, sculptures, and just random things you find in the streets. A lot more than you see in the States. The Festival of Lights was cool, too – it was random that we ended up here during the week it was happening. It was cool to see all the projections and visuals on the towers and buildings. And then there was that big inflatable guy at Potsdamer Platz – that probably wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for the festival, and I really liked that thing. The only thing I didn’t like was the cash-only culture. I hate that. I don’t usually carry cash on me.
I went to France for an Asics trip and stayed a month after the trip, so I wanted to bring my camera and take photos of stuff. I was looking for my Olympus point-and-shoot camera and found it in a box – and that box also had my Polaroid camera in it, the SX70. I ended up bringing both of them with me to France and got re-hooked. I honestly didn’t even shoot with my Olympus that much, maybe just one or two rolls, but I really got into Polaroid. Then I met Luidgi [Gaydu], and he taught me how to do Polaroid emulsion lifts. Since then, I’ve been really excited to shoot Polaroid and experiment with it.
Yes! Whenever we’re on a trip with Jerry, I’ve noticed how he sees something and just goes for it. Like, if he sees a fire or something, he’ll pull over to the side of the road and shoot it. It’s kind of opened my eyes to photography – like how skaters see the world differently. Now when I’m out and I see something, I’ll think, “Jerry would probably shoot that right now,” and then I’ll take out my camera and capture it.
There was a big inflatable thing, and that was probably my favorite thing to shoot. What else did I shoot? Just random things in the streets. Nothing too crazy. I did shoot the radio tower at Alexanderplatz – that’s probably the most iconic thing I captured. Everything else is just random stuff I see.
"When I went to France the first time, I went to the Louvre and I started 3D scanning some of the art pieces there."
When I went to France the first time, I went to the Louvre and started 3D scanning some of the art pieces there. When I got home, I turned them into jewelry by casting them in silver. It was just a cool idea – it’s fun to go somewhere and make your own souvenir from that place instead of buying something. That way, you know for sure no one else has the same thing. It’s more personal, and it’s like a craft. I’ve been making jewelry or doing Polaroid transfers on rocks, leaves, or other things to remember the places I’ve been.
Kind of, yeah. Sometimes I’ll turn the souvenir into jewelry, but with 3D art, once you have a 3D model of something, you can make it whatever you want. I try to look at an art piece and think, “What would work best here? Should it be a candle, or maybe a piece of jewelry?” For example, I scanned that big inflatable thing, and I want to turn it into a lamp. I’m going to print it bigger and put a light at the bottom to illuminate it like a night lamp or something. It all depends on the shape of the object, which kind of suggests what it should become.
Yeah, pretty much. I learned through YouTube and Google whenever I had questions. Blender is pretty popular, and a lot of people use it, so there’s a good community. If I need to learn how to do something, like make an animation or model a 3D object, I can usually find a video on YouTube that explains it. It’s super helpful.
Yeah, I want to venture into that. It’s something I’ve been excited about doing. I like making things, so it’d be nice to make some extra income or even replace what I’m making now from skateboarding. What I’ve made so far is usually stuff I like to make, and most of the time, I just give the jewelry away. But I’m going to see how it goes and maybe take it more seriously, like trying to sell it. I’m still new to it, so I’m learning as I go and experimenting with new techniques, which is fun. I get bored of a process if it’s always the same. Lately, I’ve been doing enamel work to add color to the silver, and I’m really excited about that. Next, I want to try micro mosaics, which are small glass pieces you place to create a pattern or image. But who knows? It’ll take some time, and I’ll need to learn how to work with glass or do glassblowing first.
Yeah, I mostly work at home. I just moved to LA from Pasadena, and I have a room dedicated to it. My closet is full of tools I use to make jewelry. I also have a little setup in the backyard where I do all my polishing and casting – whatever I need to do.
Yeah, for the most part. Lately I’ve been skating a lot more since I moved to LA, but before that, I would say art took up the majority of my time. I’ve been trying to balance both. Moving to LA has made it easier to link up with filmers, so I’ve been more productive in terms of filming. Right now, we’re working on a video for SciFi, so being here really helps. Since moving to LA, I’ve definitely been on my board a lot more, which has been great, and I’m getting better at it.
I feel like not everyone sees the same spots or views things as spots. For example, with certain poles I like to skate, people might not even consider them a spot. But when I see it, I think, “Wow, that’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.” Sometimes, it’s just a specific trick that’s motivating me to skate. I might be thinking, “I really want to do a kickflip noseblunt today,” so I’ll go out looking for a spot to do that. I guess I can be one-trick minded, but that’s what gets me motivated to skate. It always has to be something new I’m working on. So, I might be in a session, and it’s like, “Damn, I really want to find a spot to do a kickflip noseblunt,” or whatever the trick is. I say that because there was a recent instance where it felt like, “Damn, I need a ledge for this because this is the reason why I skate right now.” To the point where I go out of the house, grab my board and all that, because I’m hyped on that trick right now, and that’s really all I want to do that day.
It’s illegal to kill a wasp here. You can be fined up to 50,000€. The wasps at the bakeries just buzz around the food, and it’s normal here. So, I guess that’s a fact. It was interesting to learn that the city itself is older than Germany. Berlin was founded in the 1200s, while Germany itself wasn’t established until the 1800s. So, the city is really old.
"That’s so funny, I’m on a trip, and I just scared Jerry Hsu with my sleepwalking right now."
I got my passport in 2022, and since then, I’ve just been traveling to a lot of places. Before that I hadn’t really been anywhere outside the U.S., so it’s been a big jump, which has been cool. I like Europe, and I want to come back next year, stay for two or three months, and go from place to place within Europe to see more places I haven’t been, like Spain and Italy and stuff like that.
It’s kind of crazy. I personally sometimes forget how crazy it is that I’m with who I’m with, you know? And then sometimes I’ll just be sitting there, and it’ll dawn on me—something will happen, and I’ll think, “That’s so funny, I’m on a trip, and I just scared Jerry Hsu with my sleepwalking right now.” I would have never thought that scenario would be possible. It’s just funny.
I think it’s cool. Jacob Harris kills it with the edits, always. And Jake Gascoyne on creative direction does a really good job too. So I think the two of them together make for good content, good videos. I said that word. I said the “content” word. Yikes.
They’re good… they’re good. I feel like maybe not my favorite food, but I mean, it’s not bad. I just can’t eat it every day, and we had it almost every day out here.
The spots we skated were tough. The curved ledge was pretty crusty; it had chunks taken out of it. And then the bump—honestly, I didn’t have a good time with that one. It was really hard to skate. Deceptively hard. The manny pad we skated with Javi [de Pedro] was really cool, and the wall next to it was a great spot. That was a really fun day. I love those spots. The Alexanderplatz spot, where we shot the backside flip, was a really good one too. Overall, it was half and half: some really nice spots, and then some crusty spots that are still cool but a little harder to skate.
Honestly, I feel like I’ve skated too many L.A. spots, so it’s not as exciting anymore. I feel like it’s always better for me to skate anywhere outside of L.A., because it’s all about exploring. When everything around me is new, I know there’s bound to be something I’m going to like.
I’ve noticed that I like to just go to a city, like downtown Berlin, and cruise around to see whatever I find. It kind of goes along with doing wallrides and slappies. You see those things everywhere. Almost anything can be a spot. So, it’s fun to just cruise around and maybe hit a wallride on the way, just keep it going.
Once I started traveling, I made a rule that I was going to buy a pair of sunglasses for every place I go to, so I could have a collection to remember all the places I’ve been. I think it started in Copenhagen. Since then, everywhere I go, I just get a funky pair of glasses. But this time, I got hooked up with some Gentle Monster ones. Those are insane. Probably the craziest pair of glasses I own now.
To be honest, it’s really tough. It’s not easy, if I’m honest about that. That’s why I’m trying to pick up jewelry-making and maybe take it a little more seriously, so I don’t have to depend on skateboarding to make ends meet. Hopefully, in the future, I can pick up more sponsors or something and get paid better. I don’t personally think I’ll ever buy a house from skateboarding. I have to look at it half-full, though, and just focus on the bright side—like, I get to travel a lot for free. In terms of living, I need to figure something else out, for sure. I always felt shy about talking about that, but it’s the truth, you know?
So, I remember back when Instagram was new, and they had a feed feature that shows what everyone’s doing. Like, “This person just liked this post,” or “This person just started following this person.” I would go on there, and I’d see, like, “Daewon Song just liked this one second ago.” So, Daewon Song is on his phone right now, and I’d tag him in one of my skate videos—just @daewonsong or something. He’d see it, and then usually leave a comment, like fire emojis or something. Then I’d go and delete the comment that tagged him, so it would look like Daewon was just lurking my page and thought my clip was fire. Then I’d have my homies ask, “Why was Daewon Song on your page?” or “I saw that Theotis Beasley commented on your page, how come?” And I’d just be like, “I don’t know, man. Who knows? They must’ve just thought it was cool.”