We recently connected with Jalen Willis and have shared our conversation below.

Jalen , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I originally started skating around 11 years old by my long time good friend Cris Lesh. I never really looked at skating as something I could do as a job or even a career. I just loved to skate and loved that it was up to you to progress at your own pace. I played basketball and baseball for many years and quit both sports when I was around 13 and pursued skating a little more. I never liked being on a team and you yourself can be really good but the team can just suck so it would bring down my motivation and wouldn’t work as hard at it as much anymore. With skating as I said before it’s all about you and what you wanna do and not have to listen to coaches or anyone else for that matter it’s all self expression of your enjoyment. I started filming video parts and edits with all my homies and just kept doing it and as years passed I got sponsors started traveling to contest and eventually moved to LA to experience even more of the skate culture and never looked back. To me to this day skating is never a job, it’s just something I enjoy to do that brings me opportunities for the work I’ve put into it and into myself.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

When I was about 3 or 4 I first got on a skateboard after watching this show called rocket power, I thought it was so sick how they would just go around skate, bmx, surf all the extreme sports. So I first went to this indoor skatepark down the street from me called area 57 and would watch the others in amazement. I eventually stopped and got into team sports basketball and baseball. Then around 10-11 I met the homie Cris lesh and then started eventually skating around 11 years old and been skating ever since. I grew up in Lorain Ohio and would go to Chenga 57 almost everyday in the winter and summer I would go to Avon and Avon lake skatepark and eventually bay village when they opened then Lakewood skatepark. I eventually met some of my good homies to this day at these skateparks and that’s when I started filming a lot more and started branching out of the skatepark into the streets. I filmed numerous video parts such as “DAZE” “Jump the Gun” “Sub-Urban” and then I started filming for a video called “Contrast” and that’s when o first experienced tracking to different states to film. That part eventually was the first part that thrasher shared on there website and starting getting more eyes on myself and more sponsors came after that. Eventually moved to La when I was 19 and lived here ever since. Moving to La brought numerous more opportunities for traveling, contest, video parts. My good homie Garrett aka “DJ TopGun” made a brand called rage club and we eventually went on to film 2 videos and one of the videos is when I first got to travel out the country to Spain to film for this video, that same video ended up being played at Tampa Am and we we also got to host that years Tampa am after party night that year. I ended up getting a double cartilage replacement in my knee directly following this and that took me out about a year and a half. I ended up getting on this world famous skate shop called Brooklyn projects and began to film another video part. This video part was the toughest to film for following my knee surgery but got my confidence back and it all payed off when we had the premiere of the very first skate video inside the whisky-a-go-go. This video ended up on thrasher and brought a lot more eyes. The past couple years I’ve been traveling back home to Ohio to put on skate events and contest with my homie Jarod in hope to bring up a new generation and put a spark back in the skate scene. As of right now I’m in the process of helping design a skatepark for lorain Ohio with Chad Muska and the rest of the design team.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is still to be a pro skater and have my name on my board in skate shops all around Ohio and to be able to still put on for the community I grew up in by doing events contest and still put out video parts that I’ll be able to look back on years later.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

My favorite thing is putting out video parts because they always hold memories and brings back how that time period was and how you felt and remember how long certain tricks took and when you finally roll away, it’s the best feeling.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/jalenwillis?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAabYTGtQFtvpTZVQiLfEGCrScxlZL3LE1IXEgRIEJTYgER4JsQSH5amKRi0_aem_VaQNYqNcR8NSjQUBakg1_A
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jalenwillis/profilecard
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@jalenwillis1227?si=MGKPrOIXHpWQtH-m