HUSTON Nyjah

Preferred stance
Goofy (popsugar.co.uk, 30 Jun 2021)

General
EARLY YEARS IN PUERTO RICO
He was raised in a strict Rastafarian household and was pushed into skateboarding with his four siblings by his father. In 2006 his father moved the family to a farm in Puerto Rico, where the children were homeschooled, lived on a vegan diet and worked on the farm when not skateboarding. They lived 'off the grid' for several years before his parents split up and his mother moved back to California, United States of America with the children, eventually gaining full custody of all of them. "My family never had a lot of money. I was always around my dad growing weed when we grew up, that was his source of income. To this day, I still don't really understand why my dad moved us all there [Puerto Rico]. It felt super random. I would say my dad wanted to keep his kids isolated from social influences like going to school and making friends. We had just started to get into girls and partying a little. But kids have to grow up someday. We actually lived in a normal neighbourhood for the first year and then my dad bought this farm up in the mountains. He built me a few things to skate, thank God. We didn't have friends. It was just our family. Sometimes we had no electricity or water. My brothers and I would go down to a stream to collect water for our house. We lived like that for a few years, and then my parents separated and divorced. Since then, I haven't really had much contact with my dad, but I'm still very thankful for everything he did for me. He was very strict, but that helped me stay disciplined and get to where I'm at today." (rollingstone.com, 01 Oct 2015; highsnobiety.com, 30 Jun 2021)

A LION THAT SHREDS
He is an avid fan of tattoos and says he has around 200 inked across his body, including a symbolic lion. "Probably 90% of my body is covered at this point. I really like the lion on my stomach because the lion has always kind of been my animal. I had dreadlocks growing up, I didn't cut my hair until I was like 16. I had these long dreads and that was like my mane. That was what I was known as a kid, just this little kid that shredded. That's what the lion represents, whole lot of pride in that one." (GQ Sports YouTube channel, 15 Jun 2021)

DISORDER SKATEBOARDS
In June 2021 he launched his own skateboarding brand, entitled 'Disorder Skateboards', which he named after the sport's unique and rebellious stereotype. "Skateboarding has been my life for as long as I can remember. I've always had a dream of starting my own brand and the time has finally come." (hypebeast.com, 29 Jun 2021; blue-tomato.com, 06 Aug 2020)

CHARITY WORK
He and his mother founded the 'Let It Flow' charity, which works to provide water filtration systems to underprivileged families in Cambodia and Thailand. "We came up with the idea together, after visiting places where people don't have access to clean water. We've completed a lot of projects where we've built and repaired broken water wells. A huge percentage of wells in poor countries are just broken and need to be repaired. When they build the wells, they never give the people the parts, tools or training to repair them. So if something goes wrong, the wells get abandoned. It's a really cool thing and a good feeling to be able to help so many people. Everyone deserves to have clean water." (rollingstone.com, 01 Oct 2015)