“When Mozart did a switch backside flip the day I arrived, I was like: these guys are not messing around.”
One country, several scenes
If you know one thing about African skateboarding, you probably know Uganda, a small hand-built park in Kampala that went viral over and over. Mike Boisvert spent six weeks there and made seven YouTube videos, and his first discovery was that the internet only knows a fraction of the story. “I realized in Uganda there's different scenes, different crews. Most people know Uganda Skateboard Society, but they didn't know about Skate and Grind, or Climate Skaters, and there's many more. So I went to meet all of them.”
The park everyone saw
Uganda Skateboard Society was built by Gose Gerald (@gose_gerald), one of the first Ugandan skaters to get sponsored and the brain behind the project. He put a mini mega ramp in a small backyard park because the crew worships Danny Way, then trained a generation on it. On camera it looked sketchy; in person the ground was perfect: rails, a gap, transition, a bench and a mega ramp in a footprint you cross in seconds, with 15 skaters on it every day. It stood roughly a decade before it was demolished. A new one is going up in its place.
The park that shows where it's going
Kiteezi is the other end of the story. Climate Skaters started seven years ago on a patch of dirt in a village beside a landfill: 14 kids learning kickflips on packed earth. A rough DIY came next. Then Make Life Skate Life built Uganda's first public concrete skatepark there, and Mike was in town for the pour. It's free, it's accessible, and he calls it the best park in the country without hesitating. “Before that they were skating on dirt. Anything was an upgrade. And look at the upgrade.” Add the Uganda Skateboard Union park at Kitintale, the country's first, built in 2009 with skate-aid and the Tony Hawk Foundation, and the Skate and Grind crew for street.
Three skaters to know
Mozart (@morzart_sk8) is 17 or 18 and, in Mike's words, can fly: switch backside flips on command, comfortable on rails, ready for a contest anywhere. Calvin “Skillsman” (@calvin_skillsman) was Ugandan Skater of the Year in 2023 and 2025: a flat-ground machine who flips in, on and out of rails, unbeatable in a game of S.K.A.T.E., and who once spent seven hours trying to sew Mike a dress. Gose Gerald is the founder and the connector. Watch Brian too, the most stylish street skater of the group.
The real barrier is a customs desk
Talent isn't the problem; getting boards into the country is. “You want to send five boards to Uganda? You'll pay $300 or $400 extra just for customs, if they reach Uganda. Some people say they want to give boards away, but only 5% reach.”
If you go
Ten days is Mike's number: enough to meet every crew in Kampala and still see the country. Uganda is one of the cheapest places in the world to trek gorillas, and Murchison Falls is the park to pick for animals. Better still: volunteer with a crew and stay as long as you want.
Mike Boisvert: “In Uganda there's no excuse for them. They always skate, and they're going to do their best. Hard workers. I like them.”
Also going viral on Instagram
Watch the full Uganda series
Photos and video: Mike Boisvert / The Skate Nomad. Part of the JACKALOPE Skate Atlas, one country at a time, with the skaters who live there. See every country on the map.
