Natas Kaupas born in 1969, was referred to as one of the first true professional street skaters. He just preferred not to ride ramps and parks, when it didn't even really phase other skateboarders at the time. Kaupas is also the father of the all so popular wall-ride. When thrasher magazine saw that, they were so impressed he made the cover. After that happened he began to get more and more. In 1984 he got his first pro model with SMA(Santa Monica Airlines) skateboards. At this time he started skating with people like: Mark Gonzales, Julien Stranger and Tim Thiebaud, strarting the street skating movement.
At a skate demo in Oceanside California Kaupas stunned the crowd just for attempting a handrail, at this time it was unsuccessful. In 1987 he was in the Santa Cruz video "wheels of fire" and began to be noticed by even more. With that people started questioning him about his name. Natas spelt backwards is satan, really it was just the male version of Natalia in Lithuanian. He thought it was funny and started wearing public enemy shirts to get to them. In 1988 etnies saw him growing and growing and decided to offer him a pro model shoe ( which was a new concept at the time.) Then in 1989 he was in the video streets of fire, where Kaupas had a huge role.
In 1991 Natas was approached by Steve Rocco, who started World Industries skateboards. He suggested that he started his own line of skateboards. He then dropped SMA and started 101 skateboards. In 1992 101 skateboards grew very popular with Kaupas doing his thing and skating. He lost interest in the companies after they had put together a team of pros and ams. Kaupas worked for a bunch of different companies, some pretty short lived. In 1998 he found alot of graphic/ art work with element and quicksilver, also releasing a pro model on element. He is still active and doing his thing as a "semi-retired professional skateboarder" that must be the life.
How awesome is the intro to this part? AMAZING! Same with the skate part! some of these tricks need to be done more these days!
wheels of fire part.
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