Chico Brenes – FTC Finally (1993)

Never before has a song matched the skating so perfectly.

Riding off the tailed of the awful Goofy Boy era, Chico Brenes’ part in FTC’s Finally was the glitch in the matrix. Something in Chico’s Nicaraguan DNA grants him the finesse of a finely tuned Mont Blanc timepiece. I don’t think I have ever seen Chico look ugly on a skateboard? Ok, there’s that one hesitant frontside mollie flip at EMB, but frontside mollie flips were never the bread and butter of Brenes.

Instead, something I see far clearer is the influence Chico has on another celebrated street technician, JB Gillet. The push, the bounce, the switch pop shove-it, the switch frontside heel flip… It’s all there like a blueprint and JB has been vocal as to who his favourite skater is. It’s Chico, mon ami.

I could have chosen Chico’s part from New World Order released the same year, but it’s the marriage of Chico’s trick execution with the soft sounds of Sade singing Smooth Operator that complete the circle beautifully.