Nyjah Huston - Professional Skateboarding

Professional Skateboarding

Huston first garnered attention when he signed a sponsorship deal with the Element company and joined the skateboard team. During his debut era with the company, Huston appeared in numerous Element video productions, such as both volumes of the Elementality series, and competed in high-profile contests, such as the Dew tour and the Vans Downtown Showdown. However, Huston eventually launched his own skateboard deck company "I&I" in 2009 after he parted ways with Element in 2008; Huston was an amateur skateboarder at the time of his departure.

I&I was a short-lived company and operated for approximately two years with a team that consisted of Huston, Richard Jefferson, and Anthony Williams. During the period of the company's existence, a number of magazine advertisements were published and an online promotional video that featured the three team members was released. The primary aesthetic influence of the brand was Rastafarinism and the I&I logo incorporated the pan-African colors of red, yellow, and green.

Following the closure of I&I, Huston returned to Element and released a solo video production entitled Rise & Shine in 2011—the video was available for purchase on the iTunes website and later received the "Best Video Part" award from the Transworld SKATEboarding magazine. During this stage of Huston's career, the skateboarder also joined the DC Shoes company as a team rider, following a significant period of time without a shoe sponsor—an unusual occurrence for a professional skateboarder with the degree of exposure that Huston had attracted. In response to the DC Shoes announcement, Huston explained that "I think it was all a build up of things over the past year. DC has always been my top choice for a shoe sponsor but I think it took this past year for them to see what I've accomplished and how I did in the contests and my video part and all that for it to finally come through."

Following Huston's decision to skateboard for DC Shoes, other DC team riders expressed their perspectives in online promotional material produced by the shoe company. Long-term DC team rider Josh Kalis stated in the introductory video for Huston (also featuring Mike Mo Capaldi), "And then there's this other dude out there, literally buying shoes from a skate shop. He could get shoes from anybody that he wanted, but he was buying DCs." Capaldi expressed his opinion on Huston in the same video, stating his belief that Huston is "probably the best skateboarder that I've ever seen—he does everything in like two tries."