Growing up with everything that Barcelona has to offer has allowed Raul Navarro to perfect his technical style. Dude is creative. He drops ledge bangers and manuals that you have to take a second and think about before you realize exactly how hard they are. We're looking forward to seeing more from Raul later this year in the Adidas video, until then check out this recent interview and his part from A Nomad Point Of View.

48 Blocks: Break down a little of your history. I know you live in Barcelona, is that where you're from? If so what was it like growing up there, what sort of things did you do when you were younger?

Raul: Yes, I was born in Barcelona but grew up in a small town pretty close to Barcelona called El Prat, that's where I live at the moment. It's more like a neighborhood than a small town. It's like another part of Barcelona cause it has a really good transportation, ten minutes by train. Here is where I started to skate and spent the most of my time when I was young.

48 Blocks: How did you first get into skateboarding? Who were the first skaters that you saw and what sort of stuff were they doing?

Raul: That happened like twenty years ago, I remember that I saw one guy trying to push on a really small plastic skateboard and I was like, "fuck!" I need to try that, then my parents gave me one of those plastic boards for my birthday and I've been skating ever since.

48 Blocks: Growing up in Spain, what videos did you grow up watching and what skaters influenced you as far as learning tricks and skating certain spots?

Raul: One of the first videos that influenced me was Hopkus Pokus, that was amazing! A couple years later the Plan B Questionable video, I think
this one made me crazy, It was the new school, the new way of skating, new tricks...Carroll was killing it! And don't forget about Tim & Henry's, FTC's Finally, Love Child, Trilogy, Las 9 Vidas De Paco, Goldfish, Mouse...you know what I mean? This kind of skateboarding

48 Blocks: You've got a pretty tech style, do you ever skate big stuff or transitions or is it mostly just ledges and manuals?

Raul: I just to skate a lot of miniramp and a little bit of vert, back in the day we skated everything. Actually I skate a lot of ledges and many pads, but I like to skate transitions sometimes just for fun.

48 Blocks: You had some stuff in Lee Smith's part in the last FTC video, what other videos have you been in?

Raul: I did some parts for some European videos, and a few things in 411, Digital, Streets of Barcelona, some video tour videos.

48 Blocks: Talk a little bit about Nomad, they've got a good thing going with you and Luy Pa and they did a Lee Smith guest board and I heard they were doing one for Henry Sanchez too. Talk a little bit about the company and what it's all about.

Raul: Nomad is a skateboard company that came out like 8 years ago, it's like a family. There's a good feeling with everybody, the team is cool; we just want to show skateboarding. They also support some rappers from here, It's about skateboarding and music. We started to make these guest boards like 7 months ago. We make them for people that we respect a lot for the things that they did back in the day, peolple that we like to see skating, like Lee and Henry.

48 Blocks: You were recently out in the Bay on a filming missioin with Adidas. Was that your first time in the States, if so what did you think? Is there anything memorable about your time in SF?

Raul: My first time on Frisco was in '98, I came with two friends and we spent three months between SF and LA. We came by ourselves, just to see what was
going on in the States and skate the spots that we saw in videos. It was a cool trip, a lot of memories. I came back a lot of times since then.

48 Blocks: What's the deal with Barcelona these days, I've heard that it's a bust and they're taking out some spots. I'm sure there's tons more to skate but is there any problem with the Police out there?

Raul: It's really hard to skate downtown now, the police are giving tickets and taking skateboards. It's more downtown or the spots that everybody goes to, you can still go skate to a lot of spots and nothings happens.

48 Blocks: Being a local, how do you feel about all the skate tourist coming out there and blowing up the spot?

Raul: It's ok if people come here for skate and respect the spots, the people,and skaters. Skateboarding is like that, people travel to skate other countries, you know? Everybody is travelling, one day people come to your city and some day you go to their city, so you must show respect everywhere you go if you want to get that respect back in their city. It's all about respect.

48 Blocks: Who do you normally skate with out there?

Raul: I skate a lot with Lee Smith and people from Nomad, also Sambo, Marcos, Antony Lopez, and Güines. I skate with everybody that is down to skate.

48 Blocks: Lee would always say that the lifestyle in Barcelona is the best he's experienced, what do you do during a normal day?

Raul: I do the regular things, wake up, drink coffee, breakfast, check my e-mails and go to Sants to meet my homies and then go skate. After that I meet my girlfriend and we chill.

48 Blocks: What projects are you working on right now?

Raul: Now I'm filming for the new Adidas video that is comming at the end of this yea., It's going to be sick, featuring the European team and some Pros.

48 Blocks: What's the biggest difference in the skate scene in Barcelona as opposed to the US, France, England, or Japan?

Raul: In Barcelona you don't really need a car to go skate.The metro, train, or bus brings you to the spot easily. You need a car if you want to go far away, if not public transportation is perfect. Also if you compare the weather here with the weather in England or Japan, here we got the sun almost everyday, and it isn't that easy to get kicked out of spots compared to the US, but every place got something special.

48 Blocks: Any last words or shout outs?

Raul: Thanks to Nomad Skateboards, Adidas, Lrg, Thunder, Filmore, Diamond, FTC (Ando), 48 blocks, Carmen, my family, my homies in Spain, France, England, Germany,Japan, Korea, Los Angeles, Frisco, New York...everywhere! Peace!