Tyshawn Jones was re‑rolling Andrew Reynolds' Baker 3: without that frontside flip, no Tyshawn?

The Bronx, around 2010. A kid walks home from school, powers up his laptop, and always plays the same clip: Andrew Reynolds in Baker 3. He’s waiting for a specific trick, a frontside flip over the Hollywood 16 ramp. He rewinds. Again. That kid is Tyshawn Jones, and he tells the story himself to Jenkem in 2018.

Eight years later, he’s Skater of the Year. Four years after that, he earns it again. So the question gets a bit sharp: without that frontside flip filmed in Los Angeles in 2005, would there have been a Tyshawn? The answer comes at the end.

145th Street, December 2022: Tyshawn Jones, second coronation

December 2022, Tyshawn Jones headlines Thrasher: a 360 flip over the subway tracks at 145th Street station. That same month, the magazine crowns him Skater of the Year for the second time. He’s 23.

The first time was in 2018, at 19, for his part in BLESSED, William Strobeck’s Supreme video, kicking off with a switch flip at the Washington Square Park fountain.

Between those, he built his own boards: Hardies, visserie and fringues, with Na-Kel Smith, then King Skateboards in 2022 when he left Fucking Awesome. In May of that year, he cruised New York on a skateboard in Kendrick Lamar’s N95 clip.

But the rider he was re‑watching wasn’t a New Yorker. He grew up in Lakeland, Florida, made his career in California, and dropped his most famous part when Tyshawn was six.

Baker 3, 2005: Andrew Reynolds’ part

Rewind. 2005, Baker Skateboards drops Baker 3: fifty‑five minutes, fourteen skaters, filmed by Ryan “Beagle” Ewing. Ali Boulala, Dustin Dollin, Jim Greco, Antwuan Dixon, Bryan Herman, Terry Kennedy: a crew of party‑goers tearing down massive stairs.

In the middle, the boss. Andrew Reynolds, “The Boss”, founded Baker in 2000 with Jay Strickland after leaving Birdhouse. Skater of the Year in 1998, at 20.

Reynolds jumps high and far without ever looking like he's forcing it. And in that part, there's the trick that thousands of kids will watch on repeat: the frontside flip over the Hollywood 16 ramp, the sixteen-step staircase at Hollywood High School in Los Angeles.

In the same video, Bryan Herman has his part, on a David Bowie track. Keep that name in mind.

Jenkem, 2018: “I was rewinding his frontside flip”

January 2018, Jenkem publishes a long interview with Tyshawn. He’s asked what video counted when he was little. His answer is proof of what we were looking for.

“I’d come back from school and I’d be watching Andrew Reynolds’ part in Baker 3. I was rewinding his frontside flip over the Hollywood 16 ramp, again and again.” Then he adds Bryan Herman, Antwuan Dixon. And a confession that makes you smile: he never saw the whole Baker 3. Just the parts.

Why parts and not the full film? He started skating in 2010: we don’t watch DVDs anymore, we watch cut‑ups on YouTube. He got into skating through a video game, Skate, around age 10, before buying his first board at Target.

The link goes beyond the screen. Tyshawn wanted to ride for Emerica, the brand of Reynolds and Herman. He bought his Emerica with his own money, “because I wanted to skate with Brian Herman and those guys.” Jason Dill, who’ll make him pro at Fucking Awesome, tells him: “Emerica doesn’t want you! They’d have already sponsored you!”

The 2019 i-D documentary, How Tyshawn Jones Became Skater Of The Year, confirms it: he grew up watching Herman and Reynolds.

What Tyshawn kept, what he changed

What he kept shows up as soon as he jumps. The flip that spins fast and clean, the feet that land right on the bolts, the urge to chase the obstacles others only watch from afar. Reynolds School: making a massive trick look like a simple move.

There's also the trajectory. Reynolds was a legend in 1998 at 20, Tyshawn in 2018 at 19. And both launched their board brands very young: Baker in 2000, King in 2022. This parallel is our reading, not a statement from Tyshawn.

What he changed is the city. Reynolds is Los Angeles: empty schools on weekends, pristine stairs. Tyshawn is New York: cracked sidewalks, taxis, a subway platform. He took a trick born on a Californian step and brought it into traffic.

And he switched shoe camps. Emerica never signed him. In 2014, it was adidas that picked him up, and his first signed colorway dropped in 2017. A quiet comeback.

No Reynolds in 2005, no Tyshawn in 2022?

Back to the Bronx computer. A kid who stumbles on a five‑year‑old trick and refuses to move on. That's the real starting point: the moment he decides a frontside flip has to look like that.

So, the answer. Without that frontside flip, there would still have been a Tyshawn Jones. His talent, his rage, his fountain and subway platform are his. Jason Dill and Supreme did the rest.

But that Tyshawn, the one who jumps high with a clean flip and looks like he's not forcing it, no. Not without Reynolds. The link, that’s not our reading: it’s Tyshawn who told it. The first model he set for himself, he rewound it until he used it. And when he wanted a sponsor, he wanted the one from his idol.

A lineage isn’t something you see in a contract. You spot it in a trick a kid won’t let slip. Reynolds dropped the frontside flip on the stairs. Tyshawn took it all the way into the subway rails.