Nipsey Hussle Changed His World and Inspired a Generation That Will Do the Same
The late Los Angeles rapper’s legacy is undying — and still unfolding
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
For 25.5 miles, nearly the length of a marathon, the funeral procession somberly wound through the city. All traffic and commerce stopped for an imperial tribute that you’d expect for an 18th-century divine-right monarch or a five-star war hero. But there are no 21-gun salutes in 21st-century Los Angeles, at least not formally. When Nipsey Hussle died last March, a part of the region’s soul was carried off in that silver Escalade hearse. It was a loss of grievous magnitude, one that comes into crystalline focus when you consider the politics of those streets saluting the casket of Neighborhood Nip.
If gangsta rap originated with Philadelphia’s Schooly D, its ancestral epicenter was destined to become the sun-split metropolis that spawned the Crips and Bloods. Sets started amid the squat bungalows, cracked asphalt, and toothpick palm trees of South Central and franchised themselves across the world. Nip’s Rollin 60s now have branches in Detroit. The Grape Street Crips of 03 Greedo were birthed in the Jordan Downs projects of Watts but…
