Four-time X Games Medalist and Inaugural Maloof Cup Champion, Paul Rodriguez, is no stranger to the sneaker game. With a successful sneaker franchise, P-Rod will be releasing his third shoe under the Nike umbrella, encompassing new materials and technologies new to his signature line. With a new collaboration with travel bag company Incase, a social networking website with fellow skaters TK, Jereme Rogers, and Dan Abadi, and a sneaker boutique opened with longtime friends Andy Netkin and Jubal Jones, you can say P-Rod is the epitome of the skateboard entrepreneur. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Primitive's CEO Andy Netkin, and P-Rod himself to talk about the shop and sneakers,all the while sippin' on plastic red cups.

Gentleman, let's start off with some brief info about yourselves, for some of our readers that are not familiar with the shop or skateboard culture.

P-Rod: My name is Paul Rodriguez, professional skateboarder, and I am 23 years old. I got into skateboarding in about 7th grade, where a lot of kids at the Junior High I attended skated. I got really interested in it, so I ended up saving my Christmas money and bought a new skateboard. After that, I got hooked on skating and I just never stopped.

Andy: I'm Andy Netkin, if you want to get down to logistics, I am the CEO of Primitive. I met Paul when he was 13 years old and knew he was an amazing skateboarder. As we got older, I didn't want to view him as a commodity, but I knew he was, so I approached him about opening a store, he was eventually down with it, and here we are. You know, close friends turned business partners.

Paul, did you ever think you would reach the level of success you're presently at?

P-Rod: I did and I didn't at the same time. I never understood how it was going to happen, but I always had big dreams as a kid. I actually went through different phases. At one point I wanted to be a musican, another time I wanted to be a stunt-man. I also wanted to be an actor, but I knew some how, some way, I was going to make it big one day. Then skateboarding came along and I picked up a passion and love for it. It was like nothing else I've felt before, you know? Throughout the years, I went through different phases and skateboarding never phased out. I just stayed dedicated to it and I loved it. I knew I'd make it big, but for skateboarding to be the one thing that brought me to this level, I never thought it would have exactly turned out that way.