Tyshawn Jones: Courthouse Kid to King of New York

Tyshawn Jones has turned the spectacle of one-upmanship into a one-man show. Although skateboarding can be subjective, with debates about who’s “best” based on nuances of style rather than athletic output, virtually everyone agrees that nobody else can do what Jones does on a skateboard. At just 25, he’s already been called one of the greatest skaters of all time.

Before being anointed the trash can-clearing king of New York, Jones was “the Courthouse Kid,” a nickname bestowed by friend, collaborator and Supreme cinematographer William Strobeck. The moniker references an interlude in the brand’s first feature-length film, cherry. In it, a 14-year-old Jones nails trick after trick from a pedestal at the entryway of the New York State Supreme Court building, smoothly landing into an embankment that descends twice his height. “T.J. annihilated it,” videographer and filmmaker R.B. Umali put it to Jenkem Magazine in 2018.