Meet Rodney Smith

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Rodney Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Rodney , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I get my resilience from a number of resources and mainly stemming from a strong Family Tree of survivors . The adversity that those before me, what they faced, and triumphed through, is a testament of the resiliency within generations of family members before I entered this stage of life. For someone like me who needs no convincing that reincarnation and occult aspects of living ( cut off from view by interposing something ) truly exist , perhaps some of those ancestors could have been me, myself and I interacting with life in a multitude of ways. This in itself could be how I have been able to have the resiliency to succeed in this current life experience, with a higher percentage of chance to manifest a life for myself and my children, that best serves my goals, with the sustenance to make it through and out the other side, all the while creating my own set of reality, and rules, within this limited systematically run world experience.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

As being a father of three young men, a co founding business partner of three American brands (in the skateboarding industry obtained with hard work and belief through what is called the Action Sports Communities), and a respected member of the human race, My story begins in the county of Middlesex called Metuchen , New jersey in 1966. I entered this world through Dester May and Eugene Edward Smith two young Black American ‘ mutts ‘ with a host of ethnic mix of blood lines ranging from the continents of
Africa, Scandinavia, to those originally living in the Americas. I state this in this way as to remind people out there in T.V. land that ones color or religion matters not when it comes to Real Life human existence ( “in modern times” ). My life is a testament to this truth. The inspiration from the genes that reside within my body likely have something to do with This acceptance and sharing of my background by my parents, with this influence that was imprinted upon me ,and my Being under directly knowing, has directed and inspired me to see the beauty of the world from the perspective of Oneness . The town of Metuchen (where my Dad and his 6 siblings grew up ) that I was raised in, was a very diverse town with more then an average amount of ethnic backgrounds back in the 40’s and 50’s. The name Metuchen is the name of the Indigenous elder and Chief of that specific location of New Jersey Indians (the original peoples and tribe of that area) The Bust of Chief Metuchen was prominently used throughout and in the town for many,many years. His likeness was and in some cases still used at Town Hall, on police cars, the Library and schools. This truth being known was once again another supporting truth that impacted me with the belief that anything was possible or should I say, no physical limits were present from where I stood in that time of my early life.

Two hard working parents, and at times both of them working three jobs each in order to survive and raise three children within the way they felt fit. This hard work eventually gave them an opportunity to build their own home, talk about anything being possible. Both of my parents came from very poor backgrounds, with alcoholism and abuse that was abundant in both families at variable levels. As my parents felt the need, with a drive to break those generational curses, their Journey had doors wide open to be successful. They got married and started on their way. With moms high school diploma and Dads tech school certificate ,common jobs ( a truck driver, Office cleaners and mom was a house maid and baby sitter for years) set these goals forward. It wasn’t going to be easy and in fact it (was arduous at times) their task were eventually achieved. These task achievements eventually gave them the opportunity to build their own home, talk about anything being possible. They played a pivotal and supportive role in not only my life , but their immediate families lives, friends and strangers on any given day. As this rubbed off on me and my siblings, like a runway for us to fly and sail as high as we could possibly fly in life, I was able and given support to dream big. My parents and their PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) was off the charts ,as they knew that time was upon them and making the most of those opportunities was of the essence in time. knowing that window may not have stayed open for as long as it did, and with the potential of a “rolling up of those windows” potential could end their life part early, they made sure their dreams, with focus toward only succeeding, it all finally came to pass for them, as their destiny was carved in stone from that point on and nothing could stop them. This positive attitude and assuredness assisted our family to a place now integral within local lore (sports, respect for others, friendly hand shakes and kissing babies like politicians literally), as they were respected for their extended family history in town, as those influences inspired other family members to journey out of the box right behind my parents. The Smith’s , Thompson’s and Johnson’s made such a mark, and in someways is still impacting people positively to this day. The impact made on my life with this all is something written in fiction books. This frequency of impact resonates within, and… in and out of my body, with every morning as I awaken to another day… I give big thanks that I wake up each morning! Through the awareness that a legacy has made, bestowed upon me, and impacted many others, it was apparent to me that my responsibility to continue this legacy was, and is still, apparent within the life I live now with being in business. Just leaving a mark and conscious impact on the world is all one needs to do…help and assist everyone with their dreams and know that you are giving back to the world. I am a believer of the ” One Hundredth Monkey effect” do you ? As all of my immediate ( Mom, Dad, and my two siblings) family members have passed on, I am left to continue my work forward, with the help of my children, (three nieces and one nephew) to take on this willfully accepted task, as this legacy will live on for many, many years to come

At the present moment I am still active in the skateboard manufacturing and distribution business. Three of the brands that I co founded are still active, alive and well. The original business venture that I started in my garage, eventually led way to collaborating with friends ,out of necessity for better boards to compete with, as our sponsors who manufactured boards of the time didn’t make them to the needed standards of the shifting tides from ramp skating into hard core street skating we see today. Our rage tag skateboard manufacturing movement was titled Shut Skateboards. My first product (called UT pads) made in my parents garage and Shut Skateboards came to life from a need, to concept and then action (with business Partner Bruno Musso ,longtime friends Ali Moore and Wylie Singer) in and around 1986, and shortly after that Shut was trademarked in 88’. Shut Skateboards currently resides under the title of SHUT LLC. Shut is still actively selling product via distributorship and under License Internationally. The company Zoo York Skateboards (Trademarked in 1993) and apparel company lives on under ownership of Iconix Brand Group. Myself and partners ( Eli Gesner and Adam Schatz), partnered with Echo Unlimited in 2001. Echo then sold respectively to Iconix Brand Group some years after. In 2018 I partnered with a longtime friend to spearhead a new brand called ALL ONE UNIVERSE. This brand was to be different and inspirational to all humans walking this planet and not just for skaters. All One , Zoo York and Shut have an International presence and continue to inspire many with subculture ties in NYC Hip Hop/Graffiti culture and of course the American and International skateboarding culture.

Currently ,I am building a new educational /entertainment program that will operate under a nonprofit format. The entertainment aspect of this project will be an audible experience (live music), visual (live spiritual talks, slide shows, video and movies) and a meditative experience (guided meditation practitioners) and more. The education aspect will entail guest speakers of many different levels of expertise. specifically these experts are in the field of and for, teaching modalities and methods of protection
with “intellectual self defense” (phrase coined by American Professor Noam Chomsky) and the degrade/ detriments from moronic practices in this world, currently under and with systemic rule, effecting All, with an endless means of duress, keeping humanity subdued from its chances of creating a renewed Human Condition on and for this beautiful planet and its people. We must learn about our existence as it currently stands ( the real truth of this planets past history is a good start) and assist with preventing the continued cataclysm of consciousness that we are all under its effects, without distortions of history and truth, delivered as “linguistic double speak” or blatant Inversions there of, drawing us further away from truth, those matters of importance we so depend on, as continuity /survival of the species, first and foremost should come first.
We have got to believe!

” Expansion, Evolution and Upward Growth is the product of Inclusion and not exclusion. My inspiration for this new venture is my children, my grandchild and All of the children of the world. Do it for the kids… Their future depends on it more than ours does”

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The Three most important areas of knowledge came in my formative years, from three of the most influential people in my life. First… there was Bessie Johnson Stiles aka Sister Stiles (my grandmother). Grandma Bessie, in my eyes, was one of the most impressive characters to have walked this planet. She was a survivor, influencer and mentor to many. She was the daughter of my Great grand parents who were children of “house slaves”. Bessie was raised in a household of strictness unimaginable to many. She was essentially married off to a older man (my grandfather) who was in need of a wife, in order to tend to his needs and so he could procreate , she was age 13. She didn’t have a say in the matter as her father controlled her fate. He was abusive to her, even with catering to all of his on call demands, which amounted to a life of additional hardship. Bessie had 11 children in total by him. She never missed a day of work in her life , as well as prayed all day and went to church everyday of her life. She prayed for every living soul on this planet, even the wrong doers .Bessie could not take the abuse any longer and pulled the impossible for those times…she left him ,with all of the children in tow. Thank the church for sheltering my grandmother, aunts and uncles when in extreme need of assistance. In her later years Bessie would spend half of the year with our family and what what a joy that was. I remember laughing hysterically with her while watching her all time favorite show I Love Lucy. We would eat sardines and saltine crackers like it was a delicacy. those were good times for me and my sister. She was my favorite grandmother. With all that I explained (there is so much more) about Bessie Stiles, picture this tiny 100 pound women, with a 24-7 permanent smile on her face, repeating this next statement all day long ” God will take care of all of us”. She meant that and knew she needed to prove this correct by emulating what that might look like from her point of view. She never let anybody down who was in time of need, as this influenced me the most. One day while bringing her some mail to her room, I looked at this magazine that she would get, If I am remembering correctly called Solidarity. There would always be impoverished children from other countries on the cover, displaying under served humans that suffered from malnutrition , lived in squaller , or needed a helping hand for survival. Bessie…fortunately for her remarried the reverend of the church some years (30 years) later, and upon her new husbands passing, and her receiving his will, she was able to provide services to imperative causes for many years. Talk about anything being possible with two sticks and a stone, prayers to god and the will power to survive.

My second area of important knowledge to life came to me at age 6, when my grandfather( my dads father) took me aside and gave me his truth of the world in 15 minutes. He too was a product of ex house slave children. Eugene Richard Smith (Dick was his nickname) grew up and spent his early years in Culpeper County, Virginia until and around age 17. This part of Virginia was one of the areas where buy some of the Civil war, wars were fought. Being a child of impoverished peoples, he made his way and did his best to get by under circumstances of his distraught surroundings and devastating living conditions. In his early grade school years, he was well aware what he might of been faced with when in his teenage years witnessing Ku Klux Klan postings on the general store wall and, the aftermath being hangings taking place daily. He and his friends felt the the pressure and with not wanting to ever be those statistics, they felt the need to be armed. Needless to say, they almost got what they thought they were protecting themselves from, with shoot outs against the Klan became a deeper reality for them. Within sometime later their names appeared on that very KKK kill posting at the general store, and If not for my grandfathers uncle seeing the list of the week , getting my grandfather out of Virginia and bringing him to friends in New Jersey, he might not have been the grandfather that I had come to know. Through all that he had experienced and endured over his time, he never held anything against anyone just because of there race. This I was assured and was the case due to the town that we grew up in and how my grandfather fit himself in with just an opportunity and a hand full of money. I can say he was not so partial to those who waged wars, and as being a Korean war vet. (who staged his own plan to get out of that war and with some ingenious tactics of pretending he had lost his mind before the fighting started…and he succeeded under the cause of him being released being his insanity ) sent to kill a race of people that he never knew nor felt any burden from, nor for that matter, up until that time, he never even saw an asian man or women in any part of New jersey. He felt like a hypocrite when it came time to kill Asian strangers (mind you not taking place in the U.S.) who never did anything directly to him or his family. These stories and more shaped me into the person that I could be. These stories also showed me , once again, that anything is attainable with just a bit of personal effort and ingenuity. Dick Smith was my only grandfather and I loved him as such, even if others did not and only faulted him for his ways. His ways being his survival tactics which included Alcohol and honesty as far as he was concerned. The lessons I received from him assisted me with building my bridges in life to and toward anyways my attention and or direction in life was drawn in. He always said I had something that all of the other family members did not. I am grateful to have had a human like that during this life journey of mine.

Last but not least there was the most relatable experience I had ever had with my sister, that in a sense, was the real catalyst to my success in life, with pertaining to personal matters of being independent, forward thinking and business driven. My sisters name was Sandra Smith and she being 6 years older than me somehow made for the perfect pairing as big sister and little brother was concerned. Sandy… as she was called, was the perfect model representative for the entire family. She stood out in ways my shy self couldn’t have ever had expressed at her age. Im sure if she was still alive today she would beg to differ that statement I just made. It was how I felt back then, and all of the relevance to the madness was exposed from her point of view, with a twist of positivity and faith. This I believe she also acquired from grandma Bessie and grandpa Dick, then my parents. All that she did and said I absorbed like a sponge. Not a day went by that I didn’t learn something new from her. She was also a big influence on my brother (1 year younger then she) as well, and in fact if she wasn’t in his life , I don’t know if he would have made it through high school with staying alive. The greatest areas of knowledge that I received from her was that at any given point if you feel like you aren’t going to be able to succeed at something, never forget that there is some other thing following that feeling of being in able or simply not being able, that will reset your course of whatever it is that you are having difficulties with in time…so be patient. In her words it would’ve sounded like this ” Really…your telling me that you can’t be whatever you want to be ? Boy…who told you that this is your truth ? Please let me know so I can go find them a slap them silly ! ” Now mind you she was never violent in even virtual action and was strongly verbal with convincing others to contemplate there own notions of, or accepted dogmatic beliefs in and away from drawn conclusions to, with conviction held of there positions of judgment or beliefs made. Sandy was a “ball buster” and to try her on for size, you’d better have back up in the form of documented facts, sincerity in ones self to do battle if needed and an army. Sandy had a way with intuition like nobody I’ve ever known.
She was my truth speaker from that “soap box supporting speaker type of way, convincing my parents to trust my maneuvering in and outs with being faith filled and not just with having hope and faith, that I would come out on top, in the end ,safe, sound and unscathed. She had the most faith in me then all the rest. She was my biggest supporter with my skateboarding and my honesty about my disliking of the traditional schooling curriculum. She has been missed since she passed at the young age of 25, leaving three daughters, a husband and a legacy never to be rivaled in my time.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

At this time of completing my ” one page ” for this new venture, I am interested in communicating with any and all interested people and or parties. At the base of this project, it is within presenting it to the action sports world and its culture of people within, that I have been involved with, for most of my life in some capacity or another. first off… I have already contemplated and pre experienced what the next phases could look like, with that being to partner or collaborate with an interested party or person that can see this project and its importance to achieve, as an utmost importance for the now and the next potential future of humankind, starting with the youth and the young at heart. The types of folk that I would love to collaborate with would be those who can “see or read between the lines” of what I am in need of fulfilling here. Intelligent types that have a deeper understanding as to what our world of humanity has been up against and is still facing, which is of a lack of common sense, a lack of clarity and truth by those we are supposed to trust, and no reform or correction of these so called lacks in sight. For some fifty some odd years that I have been alive this has been our misguided truth. Time is and has been of the essence in this time and other times within our long history of this country… and it is about time for more assistance to humanities lack of knowing about self, to know more of our conscious abilities and our power in regards to manifestation. I believe practically anything that we the people sincerely believe that we can do is possible with the right guidance and direction. The changing of the guard in the other direction ,for the greater part of the latter is now. We must start taking a stand and replacing the restrictive/divisive programming that is abound, to take hold, for a renewed direction of living, from a position or stance that resembles the aspects of our being ( a Soul that navigates a body in active expression and experience) to come to center and to become that “type one civilization” that we are not, before we are pushed further into a “trans-humanism world view” . This what I am saying may sound a bit Utopian in nature, but from were I stand… why not ? With all of the challenges we and others have faced, and its lack there of in support of balancing the scales at the least ,instead of furthering our future in the other direction ,away from sovereignty of self, to off set the overage output of the oligarchical stronghold, that is overflowing with endless greed and limited beliefs for freedom of choice. A brighter future via true decision making, from the heart, in collaboration with an ecological way or direction to unify with Mother earth for the greater good of all kind. I don’t really have any other way of speaking up for what I believe is right. MY CHILDREN and ALL CHILDREN ARE ALREADY DEPENDING ON IT.

Image Credits

Photographer Akira Ruiz

photo of : Rodney Smith

Photographer Gina Welch

photo of : Henry Pastras, Rodney Smith, Ben Harper, Chris Pastras