The late great Crenshaw Los Angeles California Rapper and Community Activist Nipsey Hussle (whose real name is Ermias Asghedom) would have been 35 years old on August 15th, 2020. A Who’s Who of celebrities and artists came together over the weekend to celebrate his life.
“King Ermias Best friend Twin Flame Greatest Teacher Beautiful Strong Vessel The Spiritual Giant that walked Earth,” London wrote about him on Saturday on Instagram. “‘I Miss You’ will never be deep enough for the void left in my soul. Yet, I know you walk with me- always still. Happy 35th Eternally Yours, Boogie.”
Nipsey’s son, Kross, turned 4 years old this month according to USA Today, and his fiancé, Lauren London has been speaking out on gun violence since Nipsey was murdered 16 months ago. Everybody from Jay-Z to Rick Ross to Ice Cube to Baltimore Ravens cornerback Iman Marshall showed love with shout outs over the weekend.
Nipsey’s Influence on Hip-Hop Culture
Nipsey literally changed the game when it came down to the way artists think about marketing their music nowadays. I remember back in 2013 when he released his mixtape entitled Crenshaw for free online. Then, in a move that I had never seen before, he put limited edition hard copies on sale for $100 a piece. There were only a thousand of them developed.
When Bow Wow was interviewing him, Nipsey told him how Jay-Z had bought like a hundred of them all at once, and how the legendary New York rapper had sent him like $10,000 for the bundle of CDs. Moves like that just show how much of a strategist Nipsey was when it came to business.
Nipsey’s friend, DeSean Jackson (wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles) did a tribute to him shortly after his death, where he went all around his home neighborhood in Crenshaw. In the video, you see all kinds of murals all over the community that were created in Nipsey’s honor. One of the coolest ones is a basketball court with his face beautifully painted in detail across the whole platform. Jackson tells the audience in the video how close he was to Nipsey, and how he saw him as a brother.
When it hit CNN that Nipsey had been shot right outside of his clothing store in Los Angeles, everyone was in shock. But the news was true. In broad daylight, somebody killed him. Somebody who, the police said, had to know him personally, because of the way he was executed.
It hurt so much because he was so young, but also because he left behind his wife and child, and had also helped so many people in the community where he grew up. He’s always going to be a King in the eyes of everybody who knew him or heard his music, and he influenced so many other people across the world just by what he did right there in his own home.
When Snoop was speaking at his funeral, it was one of the most emotional tributes I’ve ever seen. Snoop tells the audience how he first discovered how nice of an MC Nipsey was. He said in the beginning that he didn’t really listen to the young man’s CD, until one day he popped it in while he was riding to football practice, where Snoop was coaching. After that ride, he started asking the kids at the practice about Nipsey, and eventually did work with him before his untimely passing.
The Aftermath of the Death of Nipsey Hussle
The thing I hated the most about his funeral was the fact that there was a drive-by shooting during the procession. Entertainment Tonight reported about the tweet from LAPD Chief Moore that read “In the midst of this procession we have a multi-4 shooting…Tragically one is deceased. Suspects in gray Hyundai fired on the victims.”
Nipsey definitely wouldn’t have wanted anything like that to happen, and in fact was on the way to meet with the police the very day that he died. He was supposed to attend a meeting with the local authorities to discuss reducing gang violence.
The attorney for Eric Holder, the man who is in jail right now for shooting and killing Nipsey Hussle, was recently trying to make demands in court, asking that the transcripts from the grand jury in the murder case not be made public. According to the LA Times, the judge denied this request from his lawyer to keep the documents sealed.
