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Check it out, I think this could be big for freestyle and helping it grow in popularity and the artform of it.  Support it, the bigger it gets the more all freestylers benefi.

Congrats for winning the spinning contest A2W, and thanks for taking the time to do this interview.  First of all can you tell us a bit about where you’re from?

Thanks Snake, I’m from London in England where freestyle is growing and the home of some great freestylers.
 
How did you get the name A2W?

My real name is Andrew Wilding so I got the name A2W from my initials at first but then people would say  that I’m ”Amazing 2 Watch” so thats what A2W stands for.
 
How long ago did you start freestyling, and what inspired you to start?

I’ve been Freestyling the same amount of time I’ve been playing ball for which is now 6 years, I got started by picking up a ball and just playing with a few friends, then I started to get better then the film “Space Jam” came out and I loved it!! Right at the begining of the film there was a short clip of the Harlem Globetrotters doing a few tricks and skills whilst they played and I was hooked from there on. I would search the net for more videos of tricks and streetball and came across the nike ad which changed everything!

How did you come up with the idea for your contest-winning spin trick?

I actually had another version of that move which I did not land on time but the move is the same as one of my over moves I’ve done in the past just using 1hand which made the move 100 times harder to do.
 
What have you been up to lately in terms of shows, tours, games and events?

I’ve been trying to keep as busy as I can with shows tours & games ect… Just recently I went to the premiere showing of a called “Freestyle” which is a U.K based basketball movie featuring Big Fen, Bombfire, Myself and other freestylers from the U.K, the film hits the cinema’s nationwide 26th feb. 
 
What are some of your long term and short term goals for freestyling?

Some of my goals are to increase the level of my performance in my show and become as entertaining as possible & perform my show all over the world. I would like to be involved in more t.v, films, music videos, tours and more shows. keep a long story short, I wana do it all!
 
What have you been working on with your freestyles lately?  Any new moves or styles?

I’ve been working alot on head stuff and roles and being able to sell my old moves and make less mistakes in shows. I really want to include more dancing and breaking moves in my style and have been working on that too.

What kind of things do you do for practice and how often do you practice?

I practice almost everyday and when I do practice I go hard and I’ll sweat buckets & gasp air. I’ll try to cover everything whilst practicing and most of the time I’ll get stuck on something that I’m determined to improve on! 

What freestylers have you been watching and liking lately?

Basketball man is always good to watch, it’s the massive smile that does it lol. I also like to watch Bavo because I’ve been watching him since he started and use to ask me for tips and he’s one of the few that I think we become great. Big up! I also find myself glued watching some of the japanese guys like lil G, Shiro ect… I also love watching U.K freestylers such as Bombfire, Big Fen & Tommy Baker and others such as 4Eyed, Vo one, yourself Snake, Surprise & Mieszko as an up n comer! Big up to all you guys.

You’ve been one of the most influential freestyle spinners in the game, what’s it like to watch others expand on a style that you really helped to develop?

It’s a great feeling when someone does a spinning move that really shocks me & make me want to try and do it but now there are so many spinning moves out thier its impossible to keep up and be able to do them all and knowing that I was quite a big part of that feels amazing as I’ve made a mark in the freestyle game which I want to see more of!

How did you come up with the handstand ball-spin move?

Growing up I played ball in the park and lots of my friends would breakdance in the same park so I guess the idea came from mixing to 2 sports to create a really sick move. Now I kind of use the handstand move as my trademark move and have been doing it since I was 15 & have came up with lots of different ways and styles of doing the move. still to this day that is my favorite move of mine!

If you could do a freestyle battle against anyone, past or present, who would it be?

I think I would have to choose Tommy Baker as he’s someone I’ve learnt alot from and think it would be interesting! who do you think would be a good match up for me?

Tell us something most people wouldn’t know about you.

My very first ball was a purple Spalding Space Jam ball with bugs bunny on it & I still have it! lol

What’s your advice to new freestylers?

Watch and learn and make it yourown, no body wants to see the same thing twice, so if you create rather than imitate and you’ll go a long way! also I find being able to sell your moves are important I would perfer to watch someone perform 5 solid moves instead of someone doing 50 scrappy ones!!

Is there anything else you want to say?

Thank you for your time and I hope you all keep watching because I’m going to be around for a long time!
As we’re in the festive season to I would like to wish you all a very merry chrisrtmas and a happy new year!

Andrew “A2W” Wilding

This is just one of the battles, and it looks like it was beyond insane.  For more of the battles click here.

If you haven’t seen the results for the spinning contest click here.  The winner of the contest was A2W, we’ll be having a feature with him soon. 

Also the 15 seconds of flow contest is now open for voting here.  Be sure to check out the clips section for more sick new videos, a lot of great freestylers have been posting new clips lately!

The mixtape starts off different than a typical mixtape, there are some slick effects used for a Marvel comics type text intro, and a lot of different clips used from a variety of different things (I won’t give away what exactly) that happened in the year 1988.  I thought the intro was just a tad long, but overall I thought it worked well and it set a unique mood for a mixtape.  However, I didn’t think that this 1988 theme really tied into the rest of the mixtape, it was just kind of in the intro, but after that it doesn’t really appear again. 

Streetball/straight game footage. 

This is probably the best straight-game/grimey-style streetball footage I’ve seen to date.  There are so many nasty drops, crosses and dunks it’s literally ridiculous.  There are even some clips of multiple drops in one play.  The mixtape has a nice mix of footage from high school and college games along with pickup game footage.  There’s some real high-fliers on the mixtape and a bunch of sick alley-oops from organized games.  Swift, Arcade, T-Todd all hold the tape down in this department really, really well.  I’d probably have to say the Swift and T-Todd were my favorite guys on the mixtape overall.  CP also has one play that’s just funny to watch the defenders on, but I won’t ruin it for those of you who haven’t seen it.

Trickball. 

Honestly there wasn’t a whole lot of super creative trickball type footage on here, but there’s enough to keep trickball fans happy, though.  The main guys breaking out the creative in game moves are Mad Skillz, CP, and White Magic.  All of them did their thing, overall I think Skillz had some of the nicest looking moves, and CP probably had the most creative moves.  Skillz had one handstand move that kind of made me mad though, because I’ve got myself on tape doing the same move to a few guys, lol.  Anyways, overall the trickball stuff was solid overall, but didn’t really “wow” me a whole lot.  Skillz and CP were the only ones who made me hit the rewind button a few times.  There were about 4-6 moves that I really thought were dope, but other than that most of it I thought was just nice, but not insane.  However, I wouldn’t say there was any filler footage or flat-out bad trickball footage on the mixtape.

Freestyles. 

I hate to say it, because I was really looking forward to these freestyles after all the hype, but I was kind of disappointed with them. 

Mad Skillz freestyle particularly was being talked about as being one of the best frees ever, and I thought it was nice, but not as nice as I kept hearing.  For a mixtape free, I generally expect to see a lot of new moves, and Skillz brought a bunch of new combos, and only about 2-3 new moves.  His style and speed were nice as always, and the difficulty level was up there for some of the stuff also, but it just kinda fell a bit flat for me personally.  Regardless, it was still probably one of the better frees of the year. 

CP’s freestyle brought out more of a creative side, which was sick, but it seemed like a lot of the moves weren’t pulled of very cleanly in the beginning of the freestyle.  However at the same time, he pulled out some really innovative ideas, and I have a great appreciation for that, because that helps keep the scene moving. 

Last Chance’s free was somewhere in between CP’s and Mad Skillz in terms of how it was performed.  There was a little bit of creative stuff, and overall was pretty clean.  I thought it was solid, but not amazing.  Again, I kind of expected a little bit more out of a mixtape freestyle. 

All the locations for the freestyles were sick, they definitely put some thought into them, and it added to the overall production.  The beats and edits on the freestyles were all nice also, and there were little interviews spliced in with the freestyles which I thought was dope.  However, I would’ve liked to know some more interesting stuff about the players and their thoughts, it seemed like the interviews were kind of bland, except for LC’s.

Editing/Music.

The edits and beats on the tape overall were all on point.  The editing and clip selection was obviously done with a lot of thought and time.  The tape wasn’t over-edited or under-edited, with a few effects here and there, and smooth transitions between clips, segments and scenes.  The beats were all ill, usually when I watch a mixtape there’s one or two beats I don’t really like, but this one was phenomenal all the way through.  It sticks with real hip-hop, and keeps the tempo up, but still changing slightly, which worked great for giving the mixtape a dynamic feel. 

Overall I’m going to give this mixtape 8.5 out of 10.  The straight-game footage is really the highlight of this tape. The trickball isn’t very prominent, but what is there is great, which I think is the right way to go.  I thought the freestyles were what kind of held the mixtape back a bit to be honest - and again, all of them were great, but I didn’t feel like they were amazing or up quite to par with the game footage.  The beats and production were some of the best you’ll see from a mixtape.  Overall this tape is definitely one of the best of the last 5-6 years.  It might even be one of the best ever, I’m not sure I’m ready to say that quite yet, but it seems like the type of tape that could grow on you . . .