My mate is convinced this guy was killed as part of a conspiracy thing etc due to some documentary or something. Listened to that victory lap was decent. I’m not that interested enough to research further but the guy seemed to be doing good things for his community. Great to see people in those circles doing things like that. Usual culture is to get rich and f*ck everyone else. RIP

That's just about every culture in this country.

You play with fire, you get burnt.

I hate when people are gifted all the tools in the world to leave negative influences behind and be a different, better, person but they just can't change what they are deep inside.

I suppose if someone like him did use his money and incredible luck to start a new life he'd be accused of selling out "his people" as if they are the gatekeepers of who he is or what he's about.

IDK... the fact that someone like Snoop Dogg can shoot someone in the back and kill them, claim it was self-defense, and go on to be a family entertainer and portray himself as some kind of hood Robin Hood kind of makes me sick.

RIP Neighborhood Nip

I've heard the conspiracy angle with the documentary but IMO more importantly, Nipsey stood for financial independence, owning your own businesses in your community, investing in your own community. In fact, he had just purchased the entire lot where his store was and where he got killed and was going to have it developed into a large commercial/residential site. He put up a community center for kids in his neighborhood to learn STEM skills. This is a man who gave back because he cared about where he came from. If you're on the outside looking in it's easy to say "well he should have left the hood", but he didn't want to leave his roots, he wanted to build them up to improve life for the future generations. He was one of a kind and it pains me that we won't get to see what else he had planned.

Moe, do your research on Nipsey Hussle.

I didn't quote him for a reason man, some people are content thinking they know it all when they barely have surface level info. I guarantee Moe did not even know who Nipsey was and here he is passing judgement on things he doesn't understand as usual. It's useless to talk to him so I just don't give him the recognition in the first place.

But we should all bow our heads and reflect on the Potato Famine for at least 15 minutes per day...

LOL where did I say anything remotely like that?

I know enough to realise that Nipsey, like a lot of people in that industry, is/was content to make money hand over fist glamorising violence, misogyny and gang warfare to impressionable youths. How else do they attract their target listenership? The vast majority of people like him, people like The Game and Ice Cube, use this Bloods and Crip bullshit as a cynical marketing ploy along with their label and management teams. They don't get any sympathy for me.

It's kind of like that movie "The Dirt" by Motley Crue recently released on Netflix. They say they don't want to glamourize that lifestyle of drug abuse and misogyny but that's what the movie totally does; it makes it look like the most fun thing in the world. And half the stories in the book it's based on are utter fabrications, just like most rappers "street cred".

The band's bassist even had to backtrack on a story about him switching places with the drummer while he had sex with a groupie in a closet because he was worried it would come back to haunt him what with the #MeToo movement.

Kind of apropos, I'm reminded of the arc in The Sopranos where a gangsta rapper pays Bobby to give him a flesh wound in order to raise his profile.

Moe, I don't mean to sound harsh but you have no idea what you're talking about. You don't know the world that this man came from and what he experienced. I can't blame you for that, but I can blame you for looking at it so cut and dry when you know for a fact that you don't truly understand it. Gang culture is much deeper than you realize and Nipsey was not a fake gangster at all. Violence was a large part of his reality, not a selling point. As much as he spoke about violence and the gang lifestyle he also spoke about the pitfalls of that life, and more importantly, that people did not have to live that life and could make it out of an environment like he did and actually better the community that he came from. That's part of why he did not "sell out". He didn't want to leave his community to be around ones he had no connection to, he was building up his community instead of abandoning it so other people from that area could see possibilities instead of oppression. For all the lyrics about the gang life he also spoke about financial independence, not letting artists be taken advantage of by the music industry, and unification among black people (including how gangs play a part in the division).

The fact that you included a comparison to that Sopranos storyline is laughable and truly highlights how ignorant you are of who this man was, his story, and most importantly his impact. If you care to do so you can look into all the good he did, and was in the process of doing, on your own, but I sense that you are in this thread in bad faith in the first place so I don't expect you to. I hope I'm wrong about that but I suppose time will tell.

If the initial stories are correct that Nipsy questioned the suspect in question about being a snitch, then in that sense he was sort of playing with fire by involving himself into his hood politics. Of which he almost had no choice if he was still planning on being apart of the community and holding enough respect to operate around there. And this is important to understand and the reason why he was respected more than Snoop, Ice Cube, dr. Dre etc.

He probably just didn’t think the dude was a lunatic that would come back blasting away like that. But that’s the rules of the streets, can’t associate with a known snitch.

People are getting a bit carried away and acting like Nipsy was some kind of saint and no he wasn’t. but overall he was a positive figure in west coast hip hop. He was respected across the board from all different hoods and even his enemies. He worked with everyone and wasn’t promoting more gang warfare for his community. That’s not something everyone is saying just because he died.

Absolutely, I'm not denying Nip did dirt in his life. He was a legitimate gang member of a ruthless set, so I know he did plenty. But you can't be respected by the wolves if you aren't one yourself, you can't talk all that positive shit to gang members if you hold no weight yourself, or they'll tune you right out. But the fact is he was trying to improve his community piece by piece so it didn't have to stay that way, which is more than you can say for a majority of artists. IMO the easiest way to gauge his impact is the sheer amount of people mourning him, even the Mayor of LA and LAPD sent out a message expressing condolences and the Chief of Police specifically referred to Nipsey as someone who was trying to make a change. In fact, he was supposed to meet with the top LAPD brass to talk about how to combat gang violence.

Definitely not a saint, but he was trying harder than most to make a real, lasting difference.

Well said, I agree 100%.

BTW: He took his name from Nipsey Russell, a black comedian of the Fifties and Sixties who was known as "bawdy" for his "off color" humor--very mild by today's standards.

I assumed most knew of Nipsey Russell but then again maybe I'm older than I think I am. Anyhow, loved Russell in Wildcats with Goldie Hawn.

Talent. Otherwise everyone who tried to rap would be a star, right?

And, as of recent, in Nipsey Hussle's case, shifting to a message of self and community empowerment and entrepreneurship, which you and the others portraying him as a gang banger who had it coming are either completely uninformed about or intentionally omitting to mislead people.



Considering your disdain for entertainers making money hand over fist glamorizing violence, misogyny and gang warfare, I'm surprised you watch The Sopranos.

It surely came as a shock. I've been a fan of Nipseys music since 2008 or 2009, can't remember. When everyone called him little Snoop Dogg because he was skinny and high all the time.

As far as "he had it coming" comments, I can't understand how some people such sheltered lives and don't understand what giving back to their community means. Like few posters mentioned, surely he was no saint, but the man tried to make his community better and he tried to keep younger kids away from the path that he took.

The same way Adele makes songs to which teenager girls who "had their heart broken" can relate to, gangster rappers make songs for young men and women who can relate to them.

When the mayor of LA and the chief of LAPD gives props to a young black rapper and claim he tried to do better, then who are we to say anything different?

Seeing the police chief grieve over this was eye opening. A LAPD chief openly grieving over a dead rapper. What a time we're living in.

@Moe

The Game is a member of a Piru set, not a marketing ploy.

Ice Cube have referred to Crips/Bloods in his music towards living around them on a day to day basis. He didn't use their reputation to promote nor glamorize gang activities. Ice Cube himself is neutral and have mentioned that in his songs which is obvious that you don't know his music.

well said.

Ice Cube was throwing some wannabe Crip shit out there on the sly when he was younger but he stopped. He's from the same neighborhood as W.C., who is a Crip.

and originally from the same group as two Crips(Eazy and Ren). I never knew that Cube and WC were from the same neighborhood.

Yeah, that's how Cube and WC met.

A lot of people were upset with Cube when he started Westside Connection, because he went from political on his previous two albums to gangsta. Tupac was openly critical of him for it

As far as I'm aware, Ice Cube never claimed to be a Crip. MC Ren and Eazy E were from Kelly Park. WC is originally from Houston, but he moved to LA with his family. His brother was also the late DJ Crazy Toones. He died from cancer(I think) a few months ago. Great DJ. There's a 30 minute "mixtape" on Youtube with DJ Crazy Toones with rappers like WC, MC Ren, Young Maylay, Xzibit etc. Great stuff.

Also pretty off topic, sorry about that.

3 of the biggest rappers to be murdered were killed by LA gang members

Tupac-killed by Southside Crips
Biggie-killed by Mob Piru
Nipsey-killed by Rollin 60s Crips (which he was also a member of)

There are also all kinds of fake news going out now. One of them is that Jay Z started a 15 million dollar fund for Nipseys kids. Also I saw a photo on Instagram where it showed Nipsey with a bunch of guys and one of them is apparently the shooter. Not sure how real that is, but could very well be.

Two LAPD officers were connected to Biggie's death, too.

That was the original thinking but that turned out to be false. Sure Knight paid a Mob Piru member named Poochie $13,000 for the Biggie hit. He later got killed too. 3 of the Southside Crips that were in the car that killed Tupac are dead. Only 1 is still alive and I think he’s doing life.

Biggie was kill by a member of Mob Piru?