Lil Nas X has spoken out after Tony Hawk released his new blood-painted skateboard.
Hawk donated two vials of his own blood to be mixed with paint and smeared on a limited run of 100 skateboards, which sold out instantly. The company behind the project, Liquid Death, shared a graphic promotional video on Tuesday in which the skateboarder said that a percentage of the profits would go towards “killing plastic pollution and to building skateparks in underserved communities.”
Lil Nas X, however, has spoken of double standards after his attempt to release a pair of shoes with real human blood resulted in Nike taking legal action: “Now that tony hawk has released skateboards with his blood painted on them, and there was no public outrage, are y’all ready to admit y’all were never actually upset over the blood in the shoes? and maybe u were mad for some other reason?”
The rapper collaborated with Brooklyn art collective MSCHF to release the MSCHF x Lil Nas X Satan Shoes, which took a black and red Nike Air Max 97 silhouette and added an inverted cross, a pentagram, and a drop of human blood to the sole. 666 pairs were released in March to promote his song “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”, the video for which features Nas giving the devil a lap dance and pole dancing into hell.
Lil Nas faced intense public backlash and homophobia for the song and shoes. An NBA player, Nick Young, tweeted: “My kids will never play "Old Town Road" again... I'm still debating about wearing @Nike after this come nike a drop of blood for real.”
However, fans celebrated Lil Nas’ expression of queer sexuality and creativity, and backed him up over the release of Hawk’s blood deck. One Twitter user wrote: “So Lil Nas X can make custom sneakers with blood in them and there's outrage, but Tony Hawk can make skateboards with HIS OWN blood in the paint and somehow it's less of an issue???”
Watch the release video for the Hawk Blood Deck below.
