Obed Rios Mass Appeal Magazine

Words: Jay Riggio Portrait: Joshua Wildman other photos provided by: Obed Rios

The cliché “to be at the right place at the right time” usually holds true for most tales of opportunity and success. But in some environments, there is no right place and the wrong time is 24/7. This was the case for a rising star of the skateboard game who would never have his chance to shine. At the age of 14, Obed Rios was on a steady path to success in the skate world. With solid backing from a handful of serious sponsors including the infamous NYC Shut Crew and the MSA (Mexican Skate Association), Obed had all the goods needed for an extended career as a professional skateboarder. But without as much as a hint of warning, life exploded with its unpredictable series of events and Obed found himself putting down his board and picking up more than he bargained for. What came next for Obed was a chaotic existence, filled with senseless violence, guns, drugs, incarceration and an arsenal of gruesome war stories that make The Wild Bunch seem like a Lindsay Lohan movie.

Obed Rios was born and raised on the rough streets of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It was on these same streets in the summer of ’85 that Obed would find an old banana board and subsequently fall in love with skating. Soon he got a board of his own and skating became as mandatory as breathing. His Brooklyn state of mind naturally transcended into his skating. “I had a no-holds-barred style, just not giving a fuck and going for it,” says Rios. “I wasn’t afraid of nothing.” The more Obed skated, the better he got, and soon he was hopping the train to Manhattan, a place where a history-making skate scene was simultaneously emerging. During one session, he was introduced to Bruno Musso and Rodney Smith, the two founders of the legendary Shut Skateboard Company. “Rodney came up to me and said that if I did this one trick, he’d sponsor me,” recalls Rios.

After rolling away clean from his trick, Obed was taken to the Shut warehouse and graciously hooked up. Psyched on his new sponsorship and hungry to prove himself as the city’s top dog, later that same week, Rios went on to snag first place in the annual Tompkins Square Park Skate Contest. “Obed Rios was one of Shut’s secret weapons,” reminisces Rodney Smith. “High-speed attacks with killer style was Obed’s specialty. He could adapt to any terrain thrown at him and make it look like it was his local spot.” At only 14, his rise to skate notoriety was beyond rapid. Obed was the dude to watch, street skating’s next golden child. “On the skateboard, Obed was definitely ahead of his time. He was doing shit like nobody else was doing it, not trying to look like the next cat. He was on some original street skating shit,” says legendary NYC skater, Ivan Perez.

Despite his young age, he was well aware of how lucky he was. “Back then, getting signed to Shut was like getting signed to Roc-a-fella Records. You wore that badge with honor. That shit was big,” he says. Obed went on to tour the US, skating California with some of the biggest names in the scene. Big shit was happening to the little kid from the hood, but all the while Obed couldn’t shake the feeling that he was living some sort of double life. Dressing like a skater and carrying a skateboard barely held up anywhere you went in those days, so it sure as shit didn’t fly in Obed’s hood. “I’d be in Manhattan and everything would be all calm, but then I’d go back home and have to pass people on the corner who were selling drugs and doing crazy shit,” remembers Obed. People would assume that Obed was just another punk skater, but assuming around Obed meant receiving a thorough beat down. “I used to love to fight, man. If I didn’t get into skating I’d probably have been in the UFC or something,” laughs Rios. The glory days of riding for Shut were all about skating hard, drinking like a belligerent pirate and sharpening his boxing skills.
After a year of riding for Shut, the OG company began to fizzle out and riders started leaving for other sponsors. Following suit, Obed jumped ship and ended up on the California-based, Dogtown Skates. Three months later, he quit skating completely. “I used to walk the block, turn the corner and take the train to Manhattan to skate. One day I didn’t take that turn. I went straight instead and started hanging with some of the dudes on the block.” While his neighbors floated expensive cars, truck jewelry and lived larger then any teenager should, Obed was still rockin’ the same raggedy skate gear his sponsors flowed him. “I was like, ‘Damn, I want to get some of that wealth too.’” Without a dime to his name, Obed stepped directly into the arena of full-time hustling.

Just as Rios got good at skating, he mastered the art of slanging guns and crack cocaine. The transformation into hardcore hustler was easy for Obed, since his older brother had already been a respected neighborhood dealer. “While my brother was in jail I made sure no other dealers moved in on his block. Once someone moves in on your block, it’s like a cancer, so you got to catch it early. I had tons of respect in the hood from fighting and shit, so I held it down, beating people or just taking it to the next level if I had to,” says Obed about eyeing the block. The Rios’ block was distinguished by “white tops,” the colored cap on the crack vials they dealt. If anybody within a 20-block radius were caught with any other colored cap vile, they’d be in for the beating of their life, or worse. “In those days, my gun was part of my wardrobe. There were times when I would walk the block for like 15 minutes with an AK-47 in my hand in plain view,” recalls Obed. “People will test you. And if you fold, they’ll eat you up.”

Obed Rios 1989

Respect was earned the old-fashioned way in Sunset Park and Obed was the muscle of his operation, a full-blown warrior, in charge of setting anyone who stepped out of line, bloodstained straight. One night after a wedding, the tuxedo clad Obed got into a scuffle with four older dudes. After knocking each out, one of them came back to pull a blade on Obed. Enraged, Obed went home to change into his army fatigues, the uniform of choice for vengeance missions, and searched out the razor-swinging fool. “I went to the store and bought a pack of cigarettes, making sure to leave them closed, in case I got locked up. If a pack’s open, you can’t bring it into Central Booking with you,” says Obed. “If there were any people outside at the time, they were suspect. So we pulled up to this crowd of dudes who were chillin’, thinking everything was all good. I got out and just started blasting into the crowd. We drove back to this apartment, which we used as our stash house and I’m thinking that there had to have been a massacre back there, like 10 people dead or something. I’m thinking we got to leave the country and shit, but I didn’t hit nobody. I was like, ‘What the fuck?’” recalls Obed, followed by the words, “but thank God.”
Soon Obed’s brother was let out on work release and set Obed up with cash to start their operation back up. Promptly, Obed restocked with drugs and guns, and returned to open a fully operational, illicit street mall. At 16, Obed was easily making $1,200 on an average day. But as fast as money was earned, it was gone. “I’d get up in the morning, take a cab to a store and buy whatever I was gonna wear for the day. And if you’re with eight guys and you’re going to eat, you treating everybody. It’s like that,” says Obed.

Obed and his gang of loyal soldiers had money, pussy, protection and more respect than a carload of Mob bosses. But downfalls in the rising crime business are inevitable, especially when garbage bags filled with cash are involved. Once a girlfriend of Obed’s brother started bringing around her uncle, shit started to hit the fan. “This girl’s uncle started bringing this one dude around. He said that his father was in jail and left him his drug spot, but had some guys trying to move in and take over,” explains Obed. The unknown man wanted guns to protect his block and Obed and his brother had enough to supply a government takeover. Despite suspicions, they went ahead and sold to the stranger. The mysterious figure came back often, buying guns like an unstable conspiracy theorist. To make matters even shadier, the man bought a shitload of drugs and then disappeared completely. Fueled by greed and the bricks of cash that steadily lined their pockets, the brothers were blind to any warning signs of the catastrophe that was about to strike.

Before they knew it, the internal bomb had been detonated. The girl’s uncle was an informant and the mysterious buyer was an undercover agent. “They brought me to the ATF building in Manhattan. Walking through the hallway, I saw tables filled with guns—I was screwed.” During questioning it became apparent that the Feds knew everything about the entire Rios operation. Since this uncle was living at their house, he filled the authorities in on every law breaking detail. Obed was sentenced to 41 months: three and a half years. “I got off easy. There were guys I was in with getting crazy football numbers, 78 years, 99 years. Shit, three and a half, that’s like a drunk driving bid,” exclaims Obed.

At 19 years old, still unable to grow a beard, Obed was the youngest inmate at Metropolitan Correctional Center. On the inside, he had no choice but to handle his own. “When you’re a man on the street, you’re a man wherever you go,” proudly proclaims Obed. His life in jail was strictly insane. Daily, Obed would be the witness to brutal slashings, stabbings and skull fracturing brawls. His street cred extended to the inside as he quickly earned the maximum respect and protection from his fellow inmates. “I always kept it real. If ever there was a problem, I’d be the first one in there and I’d never back down for no one. Plus since I was doing a short bid, people were really protective of me. One of my workout partners had 99 years, another dude we used to call Cat because he had nine life sentences—they wanted to see me get out soon,” says Obed. With the right connects and most ferocious heads backing him, Obed became pretty much untouchable. He soon was back to his old ways, pushing narcotics to inmates for big money. “My motto [in jail] was, ‘You pay me or you check into the Hole [aka protective custody],” says Obed. “You don’t want to pay me–fine. But I got soldiers in the Hole too.” They’d always pay.
During Obed’s relatively short bid, he was transferred to six different penitentiaries on account of being too g’damned powerful. “Everyone wanted to be my friend and when I got to the compound, I was on some hard shit, not joking around.” In 1996, at the age of 22, Obed was released, a changed and humbled man. Today, the 33-year-old is strictly legit. He owns a house in Puerto Rico where he lives with his wife and two kids. Despite the truly evil images that are lodged inside his brain, he’s managed to leave behind any semblance of the criminal he once was. “I don’t miss nothin’ about my old days,” says Obed. “With the skating stuff though, I always wonder, What if I turned pro, you know? But then again, all the stuff I went through made me who I am today,” he says. Right now he’s concentrating on his family and some new projects. He’s partnering up with shoe guru and longtime friend Joe Guerrero from sneakerpimp.com, to drop Snkrpimp clothing. Also in the works is Rios’ own t-shirt line, OBEDNYC.

When Obed Rios goes back to the old block, he’s still recognized and jocked by the new generation of street hustlers. “I’m real proud of the fact that nobody around the way can claim that they played me. No one,” says Obed. “And after all I’ve been through, I’m still a true skater at heart.” And that’s pretty much as real as it gets.

http://massappealmag.com/the-vault/issue-41/obed-rios/