Hey guys... so I've been racking my head for the last couple of months about what to do when there is a passing
of a celebrity.
For as many comments that I get telling me not to make these types of videos, there are
just as many people requesting that these videos be made as soon as possible.
For me personally, all I ever wanted to be was a host or presenter.
So when I created this channel and subsequently the Before They Were Famous series, the main
focus had always been to make informative biography videos on various celebrities.
Most of the time, we make fun, light-hearted videos, made to entertain our audience while
hopefully telling them something they hadn't heard before, but we've learned through past
mistakes that under more serious circumstances, it becomes our responsibility, as a growing
platform, to tell the story in a much more respectful light while delivering the bigger
message.
On Sunday, March 31st Grammy-nominated rapper Nipsey Hussle was gunned down and killed outside
of his clothing store.
He was 33 years old.
But Nipsey Hussle was much more than just a rapper.
He was a philanthropist, actively involved in reducing gang violence in his community
by consistently calling into question the high murder and incarceration rates, as well
as being a symbol of hope and success for those who came from similar circumstances.
He also helped start an art initiative in his neighborhood called 'Destination Crenshaw',
which will be a 1.3 mile long outdoor art experience celebrating black culture in Los
Angeles.
In short, Nipsey Hussle used his platform to inspire others to better themselves.
Which is why news of his death to gun-violence is devastating to so many.
It hasn't been a full year since the passing of X who died under similar circumstances,
and something tells me it probably wont be the last.
Now, there are thousands of gun-related deaths in the US each year, so tragedies like Nipsey
Hussle or X only serve to highlight the issue and encourage solutions to the problem, and
are not meant to cast a shadow over the countless victims of gun-violence that didn't have the
same media exposure.
This is why it's so important for me to deliver this story responsibly.
This video is not about taking a stance regarding gun-violence, nor will it focus on the controversies
that may have surrounded his name.
It's about following Nipsey Hussle's lead and turning this platform into something more
positive.
With that being said, we will not be monetizing, or running ads in this video.
We are only looking to share the legacy that this great rapper is leaving behind.
We hope you see this video how it was intended to be, which is a tribute and a celebration
of his life.
Thanks.
Nipsey Hussle was born Ermias Asghedom in Los Angeles, California on August 15, 1985.
He found out a few years ago that his birth name means God Will Rise.
He cites Crenshaw and Slauson as the place that raised him, also known as the Rollin
60s.
His mom was born and raised in LA while his father is of Eritrean descent..
His parents split when Nipsey was as young as 3 or 4 years old so he grew up with his
brother and was raised by their mother, uncle and grandmother.
In 2004, Nipsey traveled to Africa and Europe with his brother and father for three months
to explore his family’s roots.
His father was born in East Africa so it was there that Nipsey met his grandmother and
cousins for the first time.
He says the trip really gave him a better understanding of where he comes from.
He told Complex:
I was raised in her (my mom’s) household in my formative years.
But as I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture
by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came
to America, and about our family back home.
Nipsey was always interested in music, listening to the radio, CDs and buying Source magazines.
When he first started rapping, he would listen to a Snoop or Dre album and fill in different
words over their beats. By the time he was 12 he was already searching for original
beats.
At 13, his mom found out about a program at the Watts Towers in LA where they gave kids
free studio time, which helped him record his own projects later on.
Nipsey took his stage name from comedian and actor Nipsey Russell.
His mom would pay their bills but Nipsey needed to find his own way to provide himself with
new kicks and nice clothes, so when he was around the age of 14 he started to hustle
full time.
In middle school he played basketball a little bit but his grades weren’t good enough to
pursue the sport any further.
In a 2010 interview with Parlemag, Nipsey said that his mom got remarried, but he wasn’t
very fond of his new step-father, so when he was 14, he was out on his own.
He stated.
I moved wit granny for a lil’ bit, then on my own for real.
By 15, 16 I started gettin’ into the gangbangin’ and streetlife.
But my moms always stressed school and education.
She put me on to prison and just bein’ a black man in America.
Bein’ in the streets at a young age, L.A. is a real place.
I was exposed to everything, killin’, dope sellin’, police, jail s***,
politics in the hood, I had a front row seat to it all homie.
By 15, he became a member of the Rollin 60’s Neighborhood Crips and claims to have made
hundreds of thousands of dollars from hustling before ever making a dollar from music.
But around that same age, Nipsey was kicked out of Alexander Hamilton High School for
an alleged robbery of the school’s computer lab.
Nipsey told Complex he didn’t do it but he was still forced to attend a boot camp
program through the Lennox Sheriff department for juveniles.
After getting kicked out of school and attending that program, he still wanted to get an education,
so at 15 years old, he took classes at a community college in West LA where he enjoyed studying
“English, Psychology and Philosophy…” all things that translated into his music.
He was getting A’s and B’s in college when he was still of high school age.
Even my English teacher got at me and was like, "Are you plagiarizing this s***?
You're 15 and quoting Plato in your essays, what's going on?" and I was like, "Nah, I'm
just into it.”
Eventually, he dropped out of community college to pursue music full-time.
His goal with music was to give an update on LA for people who only understood what
was going on in the city when Pac and Snoop were coming up.
But once he realized that the lifestyle he was living was only going to end in one of
a few ways, he got out the game and started saving his money to work on music.
He sold all of his cars, all of his jewelry and really invested in his craft.
He bought Pro Tools, an Apple Computer and studio equipment so that he could really focus
on creating freely at a high level.
And at that time, he was trying to only spend $20 a day and save the rest for music.
That left him with, 10 for some weed and 10 for something to eat.
Nipsey dropped his first mixtape “Slauson Boy Volume 1” in 2005, which would later
become the name of his own record label.
Once he established Slauson Boys Records, he negotiated a distribution deal for himself
being only 18 years old.
Clearly Nipsey showed signs of being a successful entrepreneur from a very early age.
In 2007 he also played a small role in Bone Thugs N’
Harmony’s “I Tried” short film.
Nipsey would continue to hustle but now selling his mixtapes out of the trunk of his car and
do all of his own street marketing.
His acting career continued, appearing in the movie “The Wrath of Cain” with Ving
Rhames in 2010.
Ving actually heard Nipsey’s mixtape through his step-daughter's iPod, she only had Lil
Wayne and Nipsey's music at the time, and he took a listen while on a flight to South
Africa.
It was around that time that his name started bubbling up all over Los Angeles, and word
of his movement made it all the way up to the jailhouse, where a guy named Big U was
serving a 25-year sentence.
Big U used to manage Kurupt and was plugged in with Snoop.
He heard Nipsey’s music and after only serving 13 years of his sentence, he got out and started
to manage Nipsey.
They took his music to all of the major labels together but he told Complex after liking
the music, labels would always get a call that said:
Yeah, them is the 60s.
That's Big U.
That's another Suge.
Don't do it.
And I can imagine with Suge’s rep, that wasn’t something most people wanted to deal
with.
Hussle also spent some time in county jail for a couple of months in LA after they raided
his clothing store that he started to sell his signature Crenshaw merchandise out of.
He said since there would be 50 dudes out front, the police were suspicious of the activity
going on in the parking lot.
Nipsey would put all of his money into his studio to make it top grade.
On November 17, 2006 the police also raided his studio based on an investigation into
his brother, and the studio had about 100 – 200 grand worth of equipment in there at
that time.
Following the raid, well he was back to ground zero and felt like he had nothing.
But shortly after getting out of county jail, he signed a deal with Cinematic Music Group
through Sony and Epic Records.
Jon Shapiro from Epic heard about Nipsey after DJ Felli Fel told him that Nip was the next
big artist from the West Coast.
The deal was through Cinematic Music Group, a label that Nipsey was actually the first
ever artist on.
He spent his advance money on a lawyer and went to Jamaica for a week since he couldn’t
do much in LA.
In 2008 Nipsey dropped two mixtapes “Bullets Ain’t Got No Name Volumes 1 and 2 and the
second tape actually featured a beat from Kanye West for the song “All For The Doe.”
His debut major label single was called “Hussle in the House.”
The single started getting played on LA Radio but Nipsey said there were also a lot of people
complaining that it was promoting gang culture so some stations slowed down on the spins.
Right after So Far Gone was released, Nipsey was featured on Drake’s song Killers.
You can even find an old Tweet where Drake says
“Nipsey Hussle is the hardest out”.
The two reunited years later for Meek’s going bad music video
He was also featured on Snoop Dogg’s album “Malice N Wonderland” on the song “Upside
Down” along with fellow LA native Problem.
At first many people thought that Nipsey was Snoop’s cousin or nephew because of their
similar sound, speech and looks.
Snoop even wanted Nipsey to play him in Straight Out of Compton but Hussle declined because
he wanted to pave his own path.
On the Snoop feature, he told Complex in a 2010 interview:
Snoop didn't ask me to sign to him, ask for no percentage, ask for no cut, and he more
or less just took his visibility and his celebrity and co-signed and spoke real highly of me
as opposed to being like "Oh, f*** this young n***a.
They always talkin' about he reminds them of me.'"
So I respect Snoop even aside from the music, just as a man.
The Game was also someone to give him an early co-sign on Power 106 radio and even taking
him on his LAX world tour.
Nipsey was also featured on the 2010 version of “We Are The World For Haiti” which
also featured a young Justin Bieber giving his vocals to lead off the song.
That same year he was also selected to be a part of the annual XXL Freshman class alongside
artists like J. Cole and Wiz Khalifa.
He was planning on releasing his debut studio album under the label in 2010 but later that
year, Nipsey and his label parted ways due to creative differences and he founded his
own label “All Money In.”
He released his first project after becoming newly independent called “The Marathon”
and followed that up with The Marathon Continues.
Although it was rumored that he would sign to Rick Ross’s Maybach Music, he never ended
up inking an official deal and continued to move independently.
Nipsey told fans that the third installment of his Marathon series would be called “TheMarathon 3:
Victory Lap.”
But if you know the rest of the story, the album didn’t quite drop right away…
In 2013, he said that Victory Lap would be his debut album.
But instead, his next release would be a mixtape titled “Crenshaw.”
The project would be sold as physical copies and bundles that included autographs, a ticket
to a private concert, merch, and meet and greets for $100 apiece and only 1000 total
copies being released.
The campaign was called “Proud 2 Pay” and was marketed as supporting independent
artists that rap fans truly believe in.
And well, he had a fan in Hov, because Jay Z bought 100 copies of the album.
And if I’m doing my math correctly, then from Jay’s purchases alone, Nip made himself
a cool $10,000 dollars.
And he made 100k by selling all 1000 copies one of which was scooped up by a lady named
Lauren London but we will get into that a little bit later in this story.
He used the money to fund his 'All Money In' label, staying true to the name.
He told Karen Civil that the title Crenshaw was:
“One word that could represent who I am.
It’s a foundation to who I am.
It’s a foundation to my personality and my story.
It’s where it took place at.”
In 2016, he founded “The Marathon Agency” along with business partners Karen Civil,
Jorge Peniche, and Steve-O, but not the one you’re thinking from Jackass, another one.
His Marathon clothing store has done some really innovative things as well, including
creating a digital Smartstore.
He credits his brother for the idea of starting a clothing store in the first place.
Nipsey dropped off the Mailbox Money mixtape in 2014 and continued to work on his debut
album.
Following his format, he sold 60 copies of his mixtape at 1000 dollars each.
That same year he began a relationship with actress Lauren London, and although they released
a public statement about splitting up, they had since been photographed together many
times.
They admitted their relationship to the public less than a week ago even appearing in a GQ
video in which Lauren asked Nipsey 30 questions.
Hussle’s son Kross was born on August 31 2016 and he has a daughter named Emani from
a previous relationship.
In 2018 he announced a joint partnership with Atlantic to release his label debut and after
5 years, the world finally received Victory Lap.
And it didn’t disappoint.
The album sold over 50k copies first week and landed at the number 4 slot on the Billboard
200 charts.
It was also recently nominated for Best Rap album at the grammy's and while it didn’t
win, the album received critical acclaim with many rap critics and fans alike calling it
the rap album of the year.
Outside of music Nipsey had made big moves to give back to the community that he came
from.
His streetwear brand and store the Marathon Clothing smartstore was opened in 2017 located
on Slauson Avenue in the same area he grew up in.
sadly though, it was here that on Sunday March 31st at around 3:25pm, Nipsey Hussle was shot
and would later succumb to his wounds after being rushed to the hospital.
The world of hip hop and entertainment took to social media sharing their grief simultaneously.
The impact of this mans music, philanthropy and artistry were heard the word over and
memorials were held all over the Los Angeles area.
In his later years Nipsey Hussle had done everything he could to turn his past experience
and newfound notoriety into a means to give back to his community.
He would meet with investors and City Council figures in order to grow local businesses
and inspire new inventors to bring business into the Crenshaw area.
The day before his passing he was scheduled to meet with the LAPD to discuss methods of
preventing gun violence.
He had also been working on multiple documentaries.
No Cover gave a behind the scene's look into touring and a documentary on Dr. Sebi, a herbalist
and self-proclaimed healer who believed he had found the cure for AIDS.
In a now chilling Tweet Nipsey posted.
“If they kill me for this documentary y'all better ride”.
At the time of this recording, law enforcement have released the name and identity of the
man they believe to be his killer.
We hope this case gets resolved as quickly as possible and we send our sincere condolences
to his friends and family.
Nipsey Hussle will not only be remembered as a great artist, but also an inspiration
to those looking to turn their life around for the better.
Instead of our usual sign-off, we'll let Nipsey close off this video with a message that resonated
with us and we hope will resonate with you as well.