The skate industry hasn’t shown much love to Nashville, but what the Boss says goes. Andrew Reynolds is co-owner of Baker Boys Distribution and one of the most notable pros on Emerica and Altamont Apparel. When the Boss saw footage of Dathan “Dee” Ostrander at Sole Tech (Distributor of Etnies, Emerica and Altamont), he gave Dee a call and started sending him Baker boards. Since then, Dee has been making a name for himself by spending time in California and going on skate trips with his sponsors. In my opinion, he had one of the best parts in Bake and Destroy, which can be seen here. But that was over a year ago and sadly, in order to stay relevant in the industry, you need to either have a wild personality or get footage. Ostrander seems to have done the latter and filmed a video part.

Bake and Destroy is a full video that was free in an issue of Thrasher Magazine. For Dee’s solo part, Baker teamed up with Tony Hawk’s YouTube Channel (Ride Channel) and can be seen here. Ostrander seems to be the middle ground between recent solo part releases from Richie Jackson and Nyjah Huston. Dee keeps it cool without doing too many circus tricks—as some would call them—and goes big with style, instead of looking like a video game. Baker videos have more of a relatable way of editing their videos, lots of hijinx and homies. Frontside lipslide curb roll-off to Beagle scream at sundown on the trusty VX1000 gets me more hyped to skate than a huge back lip on the Rowley Rail. It’s awesome that Nyjah can do those tricks on such monstrous obstacles, but it doesn’t do much for me. Baker videos and others such as Loony Bin make skateboarding seem more possible in my eyes.

I showed my niece Ostrander’s new part while writing this. She told me that skateboarding seems a lot like dancing. She also said that she didn’t like the music because it had words that she isn’t allowed to say. No matter how serious we try and be about skateboarding, we are just dancing around with wooden toys. We put wax on ledges and fall down things. When asked about Ostrander’s last trick in the video, my niece told me that it was something a pro would do. Baker has made some roster changes in the past year by kicking off the dudes that don’t make them money. This has made room for the Baker amateurs to have a board with their name on it. Riley Hawk turned pro for his birthday. In my opinion, it is only a matter of time before Dee is pro. The future seems bright for Ostrander, as long as he keeps skating. Watch the video, it’s free.