VIOLET

Life Skateboards was started in the early ’90s by pro skater Ron Allen after leaving H-Street. The name of the company came from De La Soul’s track This Is a Recording 4 Living In a Fulltime Era (L.I.F.E). The team included Sean Sheffey, John Reeves, John Deago, Kien “Donger” Lieu, and Ron Allen himself—just to name a few.

Life dropped their defining video, A Soldier’s Story, in 1991. The video was gritty and unfiltered, introducing Sean Sheffey in his breakthrough part that closed the video and helped cement Life as a company.

Life Skateboards was active roughly from 1990 until about 1993. 

Now in 2025, Violet has teamed up with Life’s creator Ron Allen to release shirts and boards featuring the original Life shape and the iconic logo that Ron drew himself when he started the company.

In Ron’s words-

Life started because it had to. I had done everything — traveled the world, demos, contests, the whole thing. I wanted something more. At the time, the hip-hop crew De La Soul made a song called “Living in a Fulltime Era,” in other words, LIFE. I thought it was so dope, and that’s what I was gonna do — skate for life.

So when Mike Ternanski told me they were thinking of giving me my own thing, I already had a name and an idea of who I wanted to ride for me. Plus, it was time because H-Street was changing. I was excited to have my own company, but soon after it started, I felt more like the Queen of England than an owner — it felt more like you’re just a figurehead with superhuman board sales. Real talk.

Prior to getting LIFE started, I had a meeting about Chris Miller and I starting something, but when we met, we could tell we both had plans to do our own thing. So that never happened. Imagine “planetLIFE” — that would’ve been funny but dope.

After that meeting, I was all in on having my own company, and it would be called LIFE, like my favorite De La Soul tune.

“If I’m skating, I’m living life.”- Ron Allen (2025)