How Nipsey Hussle’s ‘Crenshaw’ Mixtape Forever Changed Hip-Hop
Celebrating the 8th anniversary of a historic release
“I don’t ever make moves under pressure,” Nipsey Hussle told me in 2018, a few days after the release of his debut album Victory Lap. “Or I try not to.” But in October 2013, shortly before the release of his Crenshaw mixtape, Hussle was definitely feeling the pressure. “It’s Crunch Time for Nipsey Hussle,” read the L.A. Weekly headline that ran one day before the highly anticipated release, which launched eight years ago today.
“Before Kendrick Lamar, Dom Kennedy and YG, it was Nipsey Hussle who was dubbed the next big L.A. MC.,” wrote Justin Tinsley, the same journalist who recently produced the ESPN podcast series King of Crenshaw. “The Crenshaw neighborhood native was called the next Snoop Dogg and featured on XXL’s Freshman cover in 2010 with Freddie Gibbs, Big Sean, J. Cole, and Wiz Khalifa. That same year Hussle left Epic Records to form his own All Money In imprint. Since then, the momentum for a rapper once seen as a can’t-miss West Coast prospect has stalled. What happened?”
L.A. Weekly wasn’t the only platform questioning the status of Hussle’s career. After all that he’d overcome in his life — navigating his way from the streets of Los Angeles to the equally treacherous music industry —…
