Latest / DISGRACELAND / Nipsey Hussle: A Crenshaw Murder, Community Activism, Rollin 60s Crips, and Lost Potential

Transcript

Nipsey Hussle: A Crenshaw Murder, Community Activism, Rollin 60s Crips, and Lost Potential · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:17
Speaker 1: Nipsey Hustle are insane. He was murdered at an early age.
0:22
Speaker 1: His funeral inspired tears from celebrities, politicians, and neighbors. As
0:27
Speaker 1: a young teenager, he joined LA's notorious roll in sixties
0:31
Speaker 1: Cripps Street gang, and as an adult, he worked to
0:34
Speaker 1: bring peace and opportunity to the same neighborhood that the
0:37
Speaker 1: Crips ruled. He was jumped into that gang as a
0:41
Speaker 1: fourteen year old, and he relied on the Crips to
0:43
Speaker 1: survive on the streets of LA's south central Crenshawn neighborhood.
0:48
Speaker 1: Nipsey would eventually shift his focus from the street to music,
0:52
Speaker 1: but first, in order to sign his first record deal,
0:55
Speaker 1: he'd have to turn himself into the law. After a
0:57
Speaker 1: short stint on the run. But it was worse it
1:00
Speaker 1: because Nipsey Hustle would go on to make great music.
1:04
Speaker 1: And that music you heard at the top of the
1:06
Speaker 1: show that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop
1:10
Speaker 1: from my mellotron called Melo koye Va MK two. I
1:15
Speaker 1: played you that loop because I can't afford the rights
1:18
Speaker 1: to Seven Rings by Arianna Grande and why would I
1:22
Speaker 1: play you that specific slice of modern Rogers and Hammerstein
1:25
Speaker 1: inspired cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the
1:30
Speaker 1: number one song in America on March thirty first, twenty nineteen,
1:34
Speaker 1: And that was the day Nipsey Hustle exchanged words with
1:37
Speaker 1: a fellow gangbanger. It was senselessly gunned down smack dab
1:41
Speaker 1: in the middle of the community he loved and it
1:44
Speaker 1: loved him. Back on this episode Crenshaw Crips community and
1:50
Speaker 1: Nipsey Hustle. I'm Jake Brennan and this is disgrace lamb.
2:09
Speaker 1: Now let's just see what this sounds like.
2:11
Speaker 2: Blade backwards.
2:25
Speaker 1: Three playing clothes LAPD detectives were on the scene, trying
2:29
Speaker 1: to blend in. Of course, everyone knew who they were.
2:32
Speaker 1: But if you weren't from South Central, and if you
2:34
Speaker 1: weren't overrun by grief, and if you were to squint hard,
2:38
Speaker 1: you might be able to be duped into thinking they
2:40
Speaker 1: were just a small crew of fellow gangbangers or at
2:43
Speaker 1: least affiliated, if not rolling sixties crips, then maybe some
2:47
Speaker 1: members from up North or elsewhere, maybe the MGC crew
2:51
Speaker 1: or the Valley Hoods. But no these dudes were obviously
2:54
Speaker 1: not street. They were too clean cut, no tats, no chains,
2:59
Speaker 1: and all of them were too uniformly in shape, bulking
3:02
Speaker 1: biceps visible from under their long sleeve flannels and sweatshirts.
3:06
Speaker 1: And one dude even at his champion tucked into his
3:09
Speaker 1: jeans dead giveaway pigs. To those in attendance at the
3:15
Speaker 1: funeral for slain wrapper Nipsey Hustle, it was no surprise
3:19
Speaker 1: Nipsey rolled with gangbangers from wayback. Despite his current standing
3:23
Speaker 1: in the community of south central LA, specifically the Crenshaw
3:27
Speaker 1: district as an entrepreneur and activist, Nipsey, to some still
3:31
Speaker 1: had some heat on his name. He was once or
3:34
Speaker 1: still was, depending on who you asked, a member of
3:37
Speaker 1: the role in sixties crips, and that's what the plain
3:40
Speaker 1: clothes cops were interested in. They weren't buying the makeover,
3:46
Speaker 1: but thousands of others were. From mourners wearing Crenshaw shirts
3:50
Speaker 1: straight from Nipsey's Marathon clothing store in the neighborhood, to
3:54
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder Snoop Dogg and more. Nipsey Hustle's last gig
3:58
Speaker 1: was half somber sendoff, half farewell concert. The crowd was
4:02
Speaker 1: so huge the funeral had to be held at La
4:05
Speaker 1: Staples Center, which made it easy for five zero to
4:07
Speaker 1: blend in with the masses. Nipsey's casket held the floor,
4:11
Speaker 1: surrounded by flowers and musical instruments, says Stevie. Wonder performed
4:15
Speaker 1: Tears in heaven Snoop remembered how when he met Nipsey
4:20
Speaker 1: that he didn't pitch him on making a million dollars
4:22
Speaker 1: like other rappers on the Make were prone to do
4:24
Speaker 1: when they met Snoop. Nipsey just said give it a listen.
4:29
Speaker 1: After Snoop spoke to the crowd, DJ Battlecap played Nipsey
4:32
Speaker 1: Hustle's tracks at full blast and declared the day a
4:36
Speaker 1: celebration of life.
4:39
Speaker 3: Fans of Grammy nominated Rapper and Connity out to this.
4:42
Speaker 1: Nipsey Husse our every state of shock today.
4:46
Speaker 3: They won overnight. Grayson Hustle, I was flying the street,
4:58
Speaker 3: could say divide to Rapper and Nipsey Huff.
5:01
Speaker 1: It's a truffle right here, man all. I want to
5:03
Speaker 1: thank y'all for allowing meet the opportunity to speaking today.
5:06
Speaker 1: So we were wanted to be able to be here
5:08
Speaker 1: and show love on behalf of my friend, my brother,
5:11
Speaker 1: A great man, a great leader, great father, a great
5:13
Speaker 1: teacher and a great friend. A superstars Lebron Jackson seventy three.
5:20
Speaker 1: This is sad. I warn't passed away. It's just that
5:23
Speaker 1: man no real recognize I know what he is, I
5:30
Speaker 1: know what he was. I'm a learning like this. This
5:32
Speaker 1: man got a letter from Morocc Obama Man. Nipsey Hustle's
5:39
Speaker 1: death shook his community to its core, and the size
5:42
Speaker 1: of the outpouring of grief was proof. Tribute letters from
5:46
Speaker 1: Kendrick Lamar and Barack Obama accompanied jay Z's printed remembrance
5:50
Speaker 1: in the funeral program, and after the show at the
5:53
Speaker 1: Staples Center, the hearst loaded with Nipsey Hustle's coffin made
5:56
Speaker 1: a twenty five mile winding journey through South Los Angele,
6:00
Speaker 1: hitting all the major landmarks, from the street where Nipsey
6:03
Speaker 1: grew up to the clothing store that had stood as
6:06
Speaker 1: an act of good faith that Nipsey was an artist
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Speaker 1: who was going to continue to give back to the
6:10
Speaker 1: community that shaped him. Hundreds more mourners lined the funeral
6:14
Speaker 1: parade route in a show of community respect that respect
6:19
Speaker 1: for the young hip hop artist was hard fought, and Crenshaw,
6:22
Speaker 1: the neighborhood he was from, knew it and loved him
6:25
Speaker 1: for it and for all he did for the community.
6:28
Speaker 1: But investing back into his Crenshaw neighborhood came only after
6:31
Speaker 1: success was in hand, and that almost never happened. Two
6:40
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, Nipsey's work had been out on the
6:43
Speaker 1: street for a while. He'd been running with the crips
6:45
Speaker 1: since he was fifteen years old and had one foot
6:48
Speaker 1: in the rap game at the same time, putting verses
6:51
Speaker 1: down on various tapes, pressing up posters and pasting them
6:55
Speaker 1: up all over the hood, making sure his name rang
6:57
Speaker 1: out not just as a treacherous thug, but also as
7:00
Speaker 1: something else, an MC skilled with something to say. Tension
7:06
Speaker 1: between the pressures of gang life and the potential of
7:09
Speaker 1: a career as a musician came to a head, and
7:12
Speaker 1: potential won out. Nipsey sold his cars, bought's studio gear,
7:16
Speaker 1: invested in himself, decided to go all in, or as
7:19
Speaker 1: all in as he could, and then the raid happened.
7:23
Speaker 1: Gang shit Lapd had been watching him. They busted into
7:27
Speaker 1: the apartment he and his brother were staying at. Nipsey
7:30
Speaker 1: escaped to rest, but his brother wasn't so lucky. He
7:32
Speaker 1: went to jail. Nipsey lambed at high tailed to to Jamaica.
7:36
Speaker 1: His name rang out even louder on the streets. As
7:39
Speaker 1: a result, Epic Records came calling, and they wanted in
7:42
Speaker 1: on that real street shit, authentic hard, the kind that
7:45
Speaker 1: went back by the talent and skills Nipsey had sold records.
7:49
Speaker 1: Nipsey made it back stateside and signed his first record deal.
7:54
Speaker 1: Epic saw the potential in Nipsey and they collaborated on
7:57
Speaker 1: two mixtapes with him, a series titled Bullets Ain't Got
8:00
Speaker 1: No Name, which was critically praised but didn't sell the
8:04
Speaker 1: numbers Epic hoped for. Still, Nipsey knew his time would come,
8:08
Speaker 1: and thanks to his label's confidence in him and financial backing,
8:11
Speaker 1: he continued working on a full length release, South Central
8:15
Speaker 1: State of Mind. But with label support came compromises. Epic's
8:20
Speaker 1: moneymen would own Nipsey's masters, Nipsey had to sign away
8:23
Speaker 1: rights to his work. For an artist as smartest Nipsey hustle,
8:27
Speaker 1: for an artist with the type of long term vision
8:30
Speaker 1: he had, those kinds of standard industry terms didn't sit right.
8:34
Speaker 1: When Epic Records hit the skids in twenty eighteen and
8:37
Speaker 1: was bought out by Capitol Records, Nipsey's instincts convinced him
8:41
Speaker 1: to bail. Nipsey had that antenna, the kind most wannab
8:46
Speaker 1: artists would kill for, the kind some artists take for granted,
8:49
Speaker 1: the kind that could find inspiration for a game changing
8:52
Speaker 1: marketing plan by looking at a Philly cheese steak. That's right,
8:57
Speaker 1: the cheese steak made and sold by the Philadelphia restaurant
9:00
Speaker 1: or supposedly had Kobe Beef in it, but still was
9:03
Speaker 1: it worth one hundred dollars price tag? One hundred dollars
9:06
Speaker 1: cheese steak sandwich? Oprah thought so. She rolled into Barclay
9:10
Speaker 1: Prime and ponied up for one, and then started giving
9:12
Speaker 1: them away, hyping restaurant tourist Stephen Starr in the process.
9:16
Speaker 1: David Letterman invited Star on a show. Rich dudes with
9:20
Speaker 1: angry attitudes toward local sports teams flocked the Barclay Prime
9:23
Speaker 1: and plopped down their MX cards to try this one
9:26
Speaker 1: hundred dollars sandwich. When the hype caught up to nipsey hustle,
9:30
Speaker 1: he got an idea Major labels want to hold money
9:35
Speaker 1: over his head while dictating the terms and owning the
9:37
Speaker 1: music he creates. Screw that, screw making an album at all.
9:41
Speaker 1: Make another mixtape but only press the limited run of
9:44
Speaker 1: a thousand copies, then make like the Cheese Steak Guy
9:46
Speaker 1: and put an insane price tag on his creation to
9:49
Speaker 1: create height. Voila one hundred dollars mixtape. It worked. The
9:54
Speaker 1: mixtape sold out in less than a day. Jay Z
9:57
Speaker 1: got in touch and purchased a one hundred of them firm,
9:59
Speaker 1: so ten thousand dollars from the CEO the ROC and
10:04
Speaker 1: beyond the ten racks for Nipsey. The hype was on.
10:07
Speaker 1: People had to hear that mixtape, and they did and
10:10
Speaker 1: on it. His potential as an MC was evident. Now
10:17
Speaker 1: fully in control with his own record label, All Money In,
10:20
Speaker 1: Nipsey began releasing a new series of mixtapes, The Marathon.
10:25
Speaker 1: Featured artists included MGMT, showing Nipsey's crossover appeal and potential
10:30
Speaker 1: to break into new markets. Soon he was trading features
10:33
Speaker 1: with every other rapper in town, working with Jadakis, yg
10:37
Speaker 1: Rick Ross, and an endless list of the latest hottest
10:40
Speaker 1: mcs and producers. A whirlwind was growing around Nipsey Hustle
10:45
Speaker 1: a hurricane of recognition in buzz. He was well known
10:48
Speaker 1: and well liked and powerful music industry circles, even as
10:52
Speaker 1: he had maintained his independence and created control. Fittingly, he
10:57
Speaker 1: titled his first independent full length album, Victory, and not
11:01
Speaker 1: only did it finally break Nipsey onto the Billboard charts,
11:04
Speaker 1: but it would go on to be nominated for Best
11:06
Speaker 1: Rap Album at the twenty eighteen Grammys. He lost to
11:10
Speaker 1: Cardi B, but the recognition brought Nipsey Hustle's talent to
11:13
Speaker 1: an even wider audience than ever before. If anybody knew
11:18
Speaker 1: how to reap this whirlwind to harness all of its
11:20
Speaker 1: unbridled potential, it was nip It was as if he
11:23
Speaker 1: knew that he only had a limited amount of time left. Sirens,
11:49
Speaker 1: mourners screaming, running, trampling over their neighbors, bones broke into panic,
11:54
Speaker 1: shouts of shots fired, and two women with the bullet
11:56
Speaker 1: wounds to back it up. Police trying to police getting
12:00
Speaker 1: nowhere fast On the scene of Nipsey Hustle's memorial vigil
12:03
Speaker 1: outside his Marathon clothing shop, the same spot that he
12:07
Speaker 1: had been gunned down on on the corner of Crenshaw
12:10
Speaker 1: and Slosson. The fight was unavoidable. Why and what the
12:16
Speaker 1: fuck for? This was Nipsey's visual. He'd been dead for
12:19
Speaker 1: a day. His community was torn up and in desperate
12:23
Speaker 1: need of a release. And that's what the vigil was for,
12:26
Speaker 1: the potential to come together to commune, not the potential
12:28
Speaker 1: for violence. The crowd was somber, vote of candles covering
12:33
Speaker 1: the parking lot in front of Marathon Clothing, about four
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Speaker 1: hundred in attendance, spilling out under the sidewalk and into
12:40
Speaker 1: the street. LAPD was in attendance, Uniform cops announcing their
12:45
Speaker 1: presence with authority on mass playing clothes. Cops moving through
12:48
Speaker 1: the crowd, calmly, stealthily, eyes on everyone, eyes on waistbands,
12:53
Speaker 1: clocking for that familiar bulge. They missed it. Dude pulled
12:57
Speaker 1: this piece, had to prove that he was somebody just
12:59
Speaker 1: like the fallen rap star, not just another bum from
13:02
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. And the piece proved it, or so he believed,
13:06
Speaker 1: little man that he was. Someone in the crowd told
13:09
Speaker 1: them to put that shit away. Words angry words were exchanged,
13:12
Speaker 1: and the situation went from innocuous to potentially deadly in
13:16
Speaker 1: mere seconds, those in the immediate vicinity of the gunman,
13:19
Speaker 1: the little man, the man with the suffering ego, turned
13:22
Speaker 1: and walked away, back from marathon clothing and the votive candles,
13:26
Speaker 1: and the speech is about community and reinvesting and making
13:29
Speaker 1: a difference, and out toward the street, away from what
13:32
Speaker 1: was about to be set off. And the first few
13:35
Speaker 1: who moved out did so quietly, nonchalant, but with unmistakable urgency,
13:40
Speaker 1: bumping shoulders, with those in the crowd behind them wondering
13:43
Speaker 1: what the quick exit was for. Someone said the word gun.
13:47
Speaker 1: Others in the crowd began to exit. Questions started flying,
13:50
Speaker 1: What the fuck was going on? Where's everyone going? The
13:53
Speaker 1: gunman and the big man next to him, their words
13:55
Speaker 1: grew louder. The beef was now fully out in the
13:58
Speaker 1: open with the piece, and the little man waved it
14:00
Speaker 1: and all those around him and the crowd saw it.
14:02
Speaker 1: Someone yelled it out, gun, and all hell broke loose. Instantly,
14:10
Speaker 1: everyone in the immediate vicinity of the gun and began
14:12
Speaker 1: to run, sprinting, knocking over those in their way, with
14:14
Speaker 1: total disregard, screams. The cops had no idea what was
14:18
Speaker 1: going on. The crowd moved en mass in every direction,
14:23
Speaker 1: scattering away from the central site of the visil as
14:25
Speaker 1: fast as they could. It was a stampede mass panning,
14:29
Speaker 1: the sound of glass shattering, sirens screaming, get over its
14:34
Speaker 1: hovering first responders hustling the injured off on stretchers. Cops
14:38
Speaker 1: descended to quote the riot, and their efforts were welcomed
14:41
Speaker 1: with flying rocks, bottles, et cetera, ambulances, fire trucks. A
14:44
Speaker 1: blue wall of uniform cops took position along the side
14:47
Speaker 1: of the street, guarding a nearby gas station and convenience
14:50
Speaker 1: store from potential looters. Eventually, the crowd dispersed and authorities
14:55
Speaker 1: got the situation under control, but not before two people
14:58
Speaker 1: were stabbed in nineteen h hospitalized before the night was over.
15:03
Speaker 1: More news Lapd broke it. There was a man Hontan
15:07
Speaker 1: for Nipsey, Hustle's killer man. What the hell was taking
15:23
Speaker 1: him so long? She wanted to know. She could see
15:26
Speaker 1: Nipsey standing in front of his store of marathon clothing
15:29
Speaker 1: and wanted a picture with the star. It was her idea.
15:32
Speaker 1: So how the hell does she end up waiting in
15:34
Speaker 1: the car while her boyfriend was out there talking to Nipsey.
15:38
Speaker 1: She could hear what they were saying, sort of. Nipsey
15:41
Speaker 1: didn't look too pleased. Her boyfriend looked confused. Man, you
15:45
Speaker 1: know they got some paper on you. Paper as in
15:49
Speaker 1: legal documents confirming one's status as a CI a criminal informant,
15:54
Speaker 1: or his Nipsey in the streets he grew up on
15:56
Speaker 1: would interpret it a snitch. Nipsey was warning her man
16:00
Speaker 1: or it was the courts had paper with her boyfriend's
16:03
Speaker 1: name on it, claiming he was indeed working for the cops. Fuck.
16:08
Speaker 1: She saw it right away, the look, the look in
16:11
Speaker 1: her boyfriend's eyes, anger, fear, menace. Nipsey waves him off.
16:16
Speaker 1: He stormed away, straight back toward her and her Chevy Cruise.
16:20
Speaker 1: He jumped in drive. What I want my picture with Nipsey?
16:24
Speaker 1: What happened? Drive? Bitch? She had no idea how fast
16:33
Speaker 1: she was driving. The whole thing seemed to be happening
16:35
Speaker 1: in slow motion and epic creep down the alley toward
16:39
Speaker 1: the street, the movement of her car and everything happening
16:42
Speaker 1: inside of it, the anger radiating off of her man,
16:45
Speaker 1: the mood dark mean, a feeling of not knowing what
16:50
Speaker 1: was happening next of being set into motion by an
16:53
Speaker 1: unseen force. It was like one of those dreams where
16:56
Speaker 1: your physical movements are weighed down beyond your control, where
17:00
Speaker 1: it seems impossible to move in the direction you want
17:03
Speaker 1: to move, but something compels you. Slowly, darkly, she turned
17:09
Speaker 1: right on the west, creep, rolling with a deep heaviness.
17:13
Speaker 1: He sat next to her, staring out the window at
17:16
Speaker 1: everything and nothing. All at once, he was gone. He
17:19
Speaker 1: pulled the piece. She was shocked, a black semi automatic.
17:23
Speaker 1: He yanked back the slide and waved the gun to
17:25
Speaker 1: the right, indicating that she was to turn right on
17:28
Speaker 1: a crunshow. She did. They creeped slow behind an old
17:32
Speaker 1: Monte Carlo. He pulled out a second gun. A revolver
17:36
Speaker 1: told her to make the right on the west fifty eighth,
17:38
Speaker 1: and she did, and she knew it. The man next
17:40
Speaker 1: to him, like the points of the bullets in his gun,
17:43
Speaker 1: His heart was hollow. They caught the first right into
17:48
Speaker 1: the alley and wheeled the car up slow toward their
17:51
Speaker 1: previous parking spot, aside the strip mall that housed Nipsey
17:54
Speaker 1: Hustle's marathon clothing. When they got close, she stopped, He
18:02
Speaker 1: bounced out of the car and stormed the parking lot
18:04
Speaker 1: straight up to Nipsey Hustle. Both guns blazing, he broke
18:08
Speaker 1: off over a dozen shots. Dipsey caught ten of them,
18:11
Speaker 1: one to the abdomen that ripped through his gut and
18:13
Speaker 1: severed his spine, another to the head. Nipsey looked up
18:17
Speaker 1: at a shooter. He got me where his last words.
18:21
Speaker 1: Two others in the parking lot, along with Nipsey were
18:23
Speaker 1: also shot. The gunman bolted back to the car, dove
18:27
Speaker 1: into the passenger seat, and was in the wind gone.
18:32
Speaker 1: Nipsey and his wounded friends were rushed to the hospital,
18:34
Speaker 1: where Nipsey Hustle was almost immediately pronounced dead. Days after
18:39
Speaker 1: his vigil had gotten violent. The LAPD put the shooter's
18:42
Speaker 1: name out on the street and the man hunt was
18:44
Speaker 1: on his girl. The reluctant driver of his getaway car,
18:48
Speaker 1: a Nipsey Hustle fan, gave him up. The shooter was
18:52
Speaker 1: arrested days later. His future is currently as of the
18:55
Speaker 1: recording of this podcast, with the courts and Nipsey Hustle
19:00
Speaker 1: and all the potential he had as an artist and
19:02
Speaker 1: an activist is gone. Oh God, now were the parking
19:13
Speaker 1: lot of Marathon Clothing was swarming with Nipsey fans and
19:17
Speaker 1: proud members of the Hyde Park community. The excited crowd
19:21
Speaker 1: was a hopeful mirror for the grieving crowds that would follow,
19:24
Speaker 1: a stark contrast to the violence that would erupt in
19:27
Speaker 1: the same location just two years later, when Nipsey would
19:30
Speaker 1: be killed and his visual would be disrupted, all in
19:32
Speaker 1: the span of a couple of days. But today was
19:36
Speaker 1: nothing but potential. June seventeenth, twenty seventeen, it was Marathon
19:41
Speaker 1: Clothing's grand opening. Nipsey's name out in the streets, rang
19:45
Speaker 1: out as an entrepreneur, benefactor, and community activist. When he
19:50
Speaker 1: was nineteen, he had taken a trip with his father
19:52
Speaker 1: back to Eritrea, where his dad was from. He spent
19:56
Speaker 1: three months in the tiny East African country that had
19:58
Speaker 1: fought hard for independing. What he experienced there changed him.
20:03
Speaker 1: He saw other people with dark skin like his, running
20:06
Speaker 1: things and helping their community. He returned to Crenshaw with
20:09
Speaker 1: a long term marketing and community building plan that he
20:12
Speaker 1: referred to as the Marathon, and Marathon Clothing was a
20:15
Speaker 1: whole new level in that race. It was the home
20:18
Speaker 1: stretch beaming with pride and backed by local radio DJ
20:23
Speaker 1: Big Boy, nip wielded a pair of oversized scissors and
20:26
Speaker 1: cut the ceremonial ribbon. It was a ritual that's been
20:30
Speaker 1: performed over and over by small business owners and upstanding
20:33
Speaker 1: members of the local Chamber of Commerce all across America.
20:37
Speaker 1: This time on the corner of Crenshaw and Slosson, it
20:40
Speaker 1: felt different. Chamber of Commerce types didn't come around these
20:43
Speaker 1: parts too often. And then the doors swung open and
20:47
Speaker 1: the assembled hip hop heads walked into a sleek, state
20:50
Speaker 1: of the arts smart store. In addition to all the
20:54
Speaker 1: merch with Nipsey's brands and mixtape titles on them that
20:56
Speaker 1: lined the shells, all money in and Crenshaw logos on shirts,
21:00
Speaker 1: hoodie sweats. Customer service reps with iPads met with the
21:04
Speaker 1: first customers and explained the smart part of the store
21:07
Speaker 1: to them. Download the store's app, order items, receive exclusive
21:10
Speaker 1: new Nipsey tracks with your purchases. Next gen retail Here
21:14
Speaker 1: in the Hood. Nipsey, as always, was an innovator, a
21:18
Speaker 1: marketing mad scientist with one eye towards the future. He
21:22
Speaker 1: had first met the app designer who partnered with him
21:24
Speaker 1: on the store while stopping at a local Starbucks with
21:27
Speaker 1: his daughter to buy our a unicorn frape. It was fate,
21:31
Speaker 1: or at least homegrown good luck. Nipsey and his coder
21:34
Speaker 1: shared a belief that there's opportunity everywhere as long as
21:37
Speaker 1: you have your eyes open. In a year's time, Nipsey
21:40
Speaker 1: would partner up with another local entrepreneur, a real estate developer,
21:44
Speaker 1: and buy the entire building which Marathon Clothing was located.
21:50
Speaker 1: Because it wasn't just the hustle the nippet going for him,
21:53
Speaker 1: it was his sense of his roots. He knew where
21:56
Speaker 1: he came from, knew the darkest, hardest parts of home.
22:00
Speaker 1: He knew his neighborhood was full of kids with just
22:02
Speaker 1: as much potential as he had. If he could let
22:04
Speaker 1: one of those kids feel the same sense of possibility
22:07
Speaker 1: he felt when he was thirteen when he first heard
22:10
Speaker 1: Machavelli by Tupac. The album came out about two months
22:13
Speaker 1: after Pocket died, and thirteen year old Nipsey ate it up.
22:18
Speaker 1: Soon he was into all things Death, Row, dre Snoop,
22:21
Speaker 1: Dog Pod, Warren G. Then it was Outcast, Jay, Biggie
22:24
Speaker 1: nos Juvenile. He got pro tools on his computer and
22:28
Speaker 1: taught himself to use it. It was a way out,
22:30
Speaker 1: for sure, but not that he'd never want to leave.
22:32
Speaker 1: He'd stay and help lift up the kids left behind
22:35
Speaker 1: by an economy that preferred easier investments, kids navigating between
22:39
Speaker 1: gang violence, kids who looked up to Nipsey. Now countless
22:43
Speaker 1: rappers leveraged that kind of background to escape American ghettos
22:46
Speaker 1: and then cut boasting tracks about their new penthouses and
22:49
Speaker 1: blaing in bank accounts while they rub elbows with the
22:52
Speaker 1: illuminati and maybe maybe slapped their name on a nonprofit
22:56
Speaker 1: or an activist organization to give back. But n left.
23:00
Speaker 1: Nipsey was south Central to his core, total Crenshaw. He
23:04
Speaker 1: didn't leave and come back like a conquering hero. He
23:07
Speaker 1: stayed and became a hometown hero and arguably even harder
23:11
Speaker 1: titled to earn. It was just like Snoop would say,
23:14
Speaker 1: standing before Nipsey's casket at the Staples Center two years later.
23:18
Speaker 1: Wanna BMC's were always slipping Snoop mixtapes and promising to
23:21
Speaker 1: make him a million dollars, But all Nipsey said was
23:25
Speaker 1: just give it a listen. His work spoke for itself.
23:34
Speaker 1: On the morning of the store opening, Nipsey was the
23:37
Speaker 1: master of all he surveyed, as all the folks from
23:40
Speaker 1: the neighborhood were downloading his app and discovering something new.
23:43
Speaker 1: For Nipsey, this felt like a culmination of years of
23:46
Speaker 1: hard work, and that work did speak for itself. Before
23:51
Speaker 1: the store or marathon, the fashion label had already become
23:54
Speaker 1: the hottest brand in town, Crenshaw t shirts visible in
23:57
Speaker 1: every park and basketball court. The day after his death,
24:01
Speaker 1: Nipsey had been scheduled to attend a meeting he had
24:03
Speaker 1: arranged with the LAPD and jay Z's Rock Nation to
24:06
Speaker 1: develop new ways to limit gang violence in South Central.
24:10
Speaker 1: On the other side of Hyde Park, he had launched
24:13
Speaker 1: a coworking space, product incubator, and community development hub called
24:16
Speaker 1: Vector ninety, true to his tech savvy, homegrown identity, and
24:21
Speaker 1: on the other side of Slawson from Marathon Clothing. At
24:24
Speaker 1: his old elementary school on fifty ninth Street, Nipsey donated
24:28
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars to refinish the basketball courts, the same
24:32
Speaker 1: courts where the kids in his Crenshaw shirts now played,
24:35
Speaker 1: the same courts that he had played on back when
24:38
Speaker 1: he was just a youngin and the Crip's crew, the
24:40
Speaker 1: role in the sixties came calling. Nipsey was holding cord
25:07
Speaker 1: outside marathon clothing, leaning against his brand new black Jaguar
25:12
Speaker 1: F type. The Jag, much like his six hundred bends,
25:15
Speaker 1: was a clear indication of how far he come, how
25:18
Speaker 1: hard he'd hustled to get here. With his feet firmly
25:21
Speaker 1: planted on the escalator of success, he was still in
25:24
Speaker 1: the hood, but that was by choice. He was reinvesting,
25:28
Speaker 1: and he wasn't going anywhere, even though his come up
25:30
Speaker 1: was in full effect. But right now he was chilling,
25:34
Speaker 1: enjoying the easy southern California springtime sunshine, talking shit with
25:39
Speaker 1: some neighborhood regulars out on Slosson. Nipsey couldn't help but
25:43
Speaker 1: notice the slow rolling sixty seven Barracuda chopped low. Its
25:48
Speaker 1: engine growled, menacing like a hungry big game cat. No
25:52
Speaker 1: doubt it, Slant six had been replaced by a big block.
25:55
Speaker 1: The car was mean, and so were its inhabitants inside
25:59
Speaker 1: sixties part of his old crew, they nodded as they passed.
26:04
Speaker 1: Nipsey nodded back and thought back to his time with
26:07
Speaker 1: one of Crenshaw's strongest, most notorious gangs the roll in
26:11
Speaker 1: sixties crips, Joining up didn't seem like much of a choice.
26:19
Speaker 1: By the time he was fourteen, he was on his own,
26:22
Speaker 1: out of his mom's house and living with his grandmother,
26:24
Speaker 1: but essentially left to fend for himself, and in late
26:31
Speaker 1: nineties Crenshaw, that meant fending off beatdowns in nearly every
26:35
Speaker 1: corner of your reality, high school football games, the malls, wherever,
26:39
Speaker 1: but by far the worst were Crenshaw's alleys, a concrete
26:43
Speaker 1: maze of fear and violence. Removed from the main streets.
26:47
Speaker 1: The alleys offered privacy where treacherous thugs would attack for
26:50
Speaker 1: whatever reason they wanted. Walled in by the backsides of
26:54
Speaker 1: the neighborhood's strip malls and apartments, the alleys were beat
26:57
Speaker 1: down central. Worse than that were the shooters through the
27:02
Speaker 1: fuck knew why, for fond for whatever. Screwing through the
27:04
Speaker 1: neighborhood under a BMX bike while being unaffiliated with a
27:07
Speaker 1: gang was enough to get a shot. At the same time,
27:11
Speaker 1: as a youth, Nipsey was obsessed with music, looking for
27:14
Speaker 1: any opportunity to make him and the harshness of his
27:17
Speaker 1: surroundings and lack of opportunity combined with the cold reality
27:20
Speaker 1: of simply needing to make money to survive as a child,
27:24
Speaker 1: caused him to join up. It was joined, die or move.
27:28
Speaker 1: Those were the choices For a fourteen year old. The
27:32
Speaker 1: decision was easy, crew up, join, But first there would
27:36
Speaker 1: be the initiation. Like nearly every modern member before him,
27:40
Speaker 1: Nipsey needed to be jumped into the gang in one
27:43
Speaker 1: of the alleys, of course, nowhere to run, no where
27:46
Speaker 1: to hide, treacherous, the circle formed around him, three older
27:52
Speaker 1: teenage members pulled in tight, and then from behind the
27:56
Speaker 1: first punch a wild below cocked from way back hard
28:01
Speaker 1: to the side of the head. Then an unimaginable flurry
28:04
Speaker 1: of fists from the three member square circle to the face,
28:08
Speaker 1: the back of the head, the chest, the gut, the back,
28:10
Speaker 1: all over again and again and again. And there is
28:14
Speaker 1: no set time for jumpins. Sure as some gangs hold
28:17
Speaker 1: fast to the sixty second rule, some less, some more.
28:20
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get a real means son of a bitch
28:22
Speaker 1: who really wants to put it on you, and you
28:24
Speaker 1: fight till you fall, and then the real beating starts.
28:27
Speaker 1: But most times the fight lasts until you prove yourself,
28:30
Speaker 1: prove your metal, your steel, Prove how real of the
28:33
Speaker 1: motherfucker you can be when shit gets tough, how well
28:36
Speaker 1: you can hang in the face of extreme violence, how
28:39
Speaker 1: far you can go to rep the gang, Show that
28:41
Speaker 1: you can stand on your own so others will stand
28:43
Speaker 1: behind you. When the hurricane of violence passed, he stumbled
28:48
Speaker 1: out of the alley, out toward the street, through the
28:50
Speaker 1: paths on the back, through the words of welcoming and encouragement.
28:54
Speaker 1: He'd survived, and he'd survive worse. Now he was certain
29:01
Speaker 1: the sun was putting itself down for the night. Crenshaw
29:05
Speaker 1: was settling, The streets were emptying. Civilians were heading home
29:09
Speaker 1: for the evening, holding up there into the bargain, making
29:13
Speaker 1: room for the gang bangers to do their thing. Cars
29:16
Speaker 1: pulled into driveways, porch lights were turned on, helicopters hummed
29:20
Speaker 1: up above, and the streets, relatively speaking, were peaceful. Nipsey
29:25
Speaker 1: sat on Crenshaw's curve collected himself. He belonged not just
29:30
Speaker 1: to a gang, but to this neighborhood. It was home,
29:33
Speaker 1: and now finally he was protected in his home. He
29:37
Speaker 1: was moved to rhyme, if not out loud in his head.
29:40
Speaker 1: Maybe now now that he was with someone. Now things
29:44
Speaker 1: would be different. Maybe now he can make some money,
29:46
Speaker 1: get some gear and get some rhymes down on tape.
29:49
Speaker 1: Maybe now he can make a name for himself, get
29:51
Speaker 1: on that rap game, hustle. Nipsey picked his head up,
29:55
Speaker 1: looked down the street at some young bloods ten eleven,
29:58
Speaker 1: just a few years younger than him. They were running
30:00
Speaker 1: away from where he was sitting, likely home for the night,
30:04
Speaker 1: off the streets, hopefully like him, toward their future. And
30:08
Speaker 1: Nipsey looked around him. It was beautiful, Crenshaw. It had
30:16
Speaker 1: so much potential, just like those kids, just like him,
30:22
Speaker 1: but potential that for Nipsey Hustle would never be fully realized.
30:26
Speaker 1: And that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan in This
30:32
Speaker 1: is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is
30:49
Speaker 1: produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode
30:53
Speaker 1: can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod
30:56
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Speaker 1: He then Man