STATE SERIES #4: ZERED BASSETT | MASSACHUSETTS
Portrait by Anton Isaksson
2005 — I’ll never forget the day Pat D’onfro passed me a copy of Vicious Cycle at my local Eastern Boarder in Leominster, Massachusetts. He gave me the DVD and shrugged, “we can’t sell this because of the music, but you should watch this” — fair to say, things changed after watching this video. Wait, this dude is from, Cape Cod? we all said.
I would spend the next decade in & around Boston, coming up on spots that Z had already beasted on. Looking back, he set the tempo for everybody in the northeast, and became a beacon of hope for New England skaters. A symbol of raw east coast power. It’s hard to imagine either the Boston, NY, and the collective east coast scene — without Zered’s impact.
And let’s face it — his resume still holds. I would challenge anybody to beast on his double gap on Mission Hill with as much control and finesse in 2021. Unlikely.
Words by Brett Dalzell
For installment 4 of our State Series™ Zered gives his five favorites from his home state.
Bro is from a few towns over from where I grew up in Chatham Massachusetts. After the first year or two of skating, I started skating with some of the guys from the local skate shop The Boarding House. They kept talking about this guy named Bro. We would go to skate spots in our area and the guys would mention the tricks that Bro had done at them. At first I didn’t even believe half the stuff they were telling me he did. Bro’s approach to skating is balls to the wall. I will always respect that.
I met Jahmal Williams when I was about 14 in Boston. I remember it perfectly - I was getting boards from 16 Skateboards at the time, and the team manager was Rohdney Johnson (Rip). Rodney was leaving to work for World Industries and asked me if I wanted boards from them. At the same time Jeff pang was hitting me up about Zoo York. I remember skating spot to spot with Jahmal and chatting. He asked me who I was getting boards from and I explained to him the situation I was in, saying I was probably gonna get boards from World. At that time I only saw California as the place to be if you wanted to make it in skating. Jahmal explained to me the importance of repping where you are from, to be proud of it. That being from the East Coast is a lot different than being from the West, and to embrace it.
Besides all that, Jahmal’s skating is timeless and magical, a true original. He was and still is a big inspiration to me.
I don't remember the first time I met Robbie, but do remember seeing him around Boston and being intimidated by the way he carried himself and the way he skated. His skating is very powerful and stood out to me. He was ahead of his time. His footage is classic and will never go out of style.
I’ve actually never met Mike, but watching his footage in the Fit section of 411 always stood out to me. I remember seeing footage of him skating the bowl at 8 Ball Skatepark. I would go to that park a lot when I was younger, as it was one of the only skateparks in New England. Recently I came across his Instagram and it’s really rad to see that he’s still skating and killing it.
Rob Cabral skate god!
Cabral is a couple years older than me. I met him at my local skate park. He used to always show up with his friend Adam and they were so much more advanced than most people on the Cape. They would show up bumping Kool Keith out of a boom box and smoking tons of weed. I remember thinking “who the fuck are these guys and what are they listening to?” I recently visited him in Portland where he now lives and he still is so inspiring to skate with and watch.
Art by Anton Isaksson
Intro by Brett Dalzell