People inside and outside of South Los Angeles are mourning the death of Nipsey Hussle, a visionary entrepreneur and hip-hop artist.
Hussle was shot on Sunday, at age 33, outside the strip mall he was redeveloping in Crenshaw, the neighborhood where he was born in South L.A. It’s the same strip mall where he once sold his unsignedmixtapes from the trunk of his car.
Growing up in South L.A. in the ’90s was traumatic. Hussle was exposed to gang culture, but also to technology and west coast hip hop. He was driven to reinvest in the streets that raised him and rebuild the community, L.A. Times reported. “We dealt with death, with murder,” he told The Times in 2018. “It was like living in a war zone.”
Hussle was inspiring. He had a vision for a vibrant South L.A. and was working to make it a hub for the country’s best and brightest intellectual thinkers.
Here are some motivational quotes from Nipsey Hussle.
“Ain’t gone be no east cost west coast war. Ain’t gone be no black men killing black men.”
Hussle was referring to a well-publicized feud known as East coast versus West coast between rappers Meek Mill and The Game. Hussle wanted both parties to reach an understanding. The Game and Meek Mill had argued over a robbery and assault involving Sean Kingston at Hollywood’s Penthouse Nightclub & Dayclub in June 2016, SFGate reported.
“We playing the long game. We don’t want the money to stop when we go. When we can’t work no more. We want it to outlive us, we want it to be generational,” he said.
Nipsey’s goal was to leave a legacy and financial stability for his daughter and son.
“I call it ‘dropping the rope’. You’ve got to drop a rope. Everybody got to climb up, but you gotta drop the rope.”
Hussle’s interest in building Crenshaw went beyond business ventures. He wanted to reach the school children at 59th Street Elementary, where he’d played basketball as a child on the court.
“It’s cliché to say, work hard, don’t quit. I would really say find yourself and find what’s your, what’s the motivating force behind you? And build around that.”
Nipsey wanted to give his neighborhood hope, opportunity, inspiration and resources to succeed.
I believe that economics is based on scarcity of markets and it’s possible to monetize your art without compromising the integrity of it for commerce.
Hussle believed in direct distribution, seeing it as a chance for artists to reclaim power from labels and tech companies accustomed to controllin their payouts for music sales and streaming.
“Circle got smaller everybody can’t go”
Hussle was 32 years old when he dropped his first studio album — an age almost unheard of in hip-hop firsts. Jay-Z was 26. In a line from the lead song on the album “Victory Lap,” Hussle acknowledged that not everyone would see eye-to-eye with him.
“Because he’s so transparent, it allows us into the mindset of a boss,” Spencer Pullen wrote in KultureHub, which broke down the philosophy behind Hussle’s lyrics. “We are able to apply his message to our own battles and upheavals we face in our lives. On the road to success, not everyone is going to see your vision. Not everyone is going to believe in your dreams.
Let the doubters keep sleeping. Regardless of any obstacle thrown your way, you are the type to go get it. Keep running your marathon.”
If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together. That filled in a blank spot for me, as far as understanding myself.
The son of an Eritrean father and American mother, Hussle went to Africa for the first time in 2004. He spent three months getting to know his family in Eritrea. Gangs weren’t “the culture of that place,” he said in a Complex interview. “It was an actual conflict over land, over the border. A generational, decades-old conflict.
That was more or less the culture of the young people. It was like, ‘I’mma go to war, fight, and go to the frontlines for my country.’”
Be truthful with yourself and other people, and try your best to make decisions outside of your ego. That way, when you’re wrong, you can take accountability for making the wrong decision. You don’t need to rationalize it or explain it, you just own up to it and acknowledge that you fucked up. You aren’t a true leader without the ability to be honest and take responsibility for your actions. If you want to hold your team accountable, you have to be accountable as well.
Hussle shared his leadership principles in a Forbes interview with Julian Mitchell. The first principle: you have to be willing to do every job. “I take the trash out, I sweep the floor, and I’m always willing to,” he said. “The second principle is honesty.”
If you 35, 28, or 30 years old, and you decide you’re gonna pick up a rag and start bangin’, and you can look yourself in the mirror and you still feel like you’re a man? That’s cool, do your thing. My concern is the niggas that are really in the shit. I’m more focused on giving solutions and inspiration more than anything
The above is Hussle’s response when asked in 2010 how he felt when “certain rappers like Lil Wayne or Jim Jones rep Bloods?”
“I feel like it’s fraudulent. Straight up,” Hussle said.
“I think you can give a pure artistic product if you understand how to build your own industry,” Hussle said. “A solution built by an artist serves the artist more than the solution the capitalist comes up with.”
In 2015, Hussle sold 100 copies of his record “Mailbox Money” for $1,000 each as part of his Proud2Pay campaign. In doing so, he cut out the middle man, distributing straight to fans.
“I’d rather invest in real estate — invest in some assets as opposed to trick all my money in diamonds and cars — it look good but at the end of the day you’re losing value. It ain’t appreciating, it’s depreciating. (I’m trying to get) a real asset. Take care of my people.
Hussle responded to a question from HardKnock.TV about why he doesn’t spend a lot of his money on jewelry and cars.
I feel like that’s insecurity. Material things ain’t nothing.
Source: moguldom.com
