Nipsey Hussle was shot and killed outside of his clothing store in South Los Angeles on March 31. The suspects are still at large. Two other men were injured in the shooting, though their names have not been disclosed to the public.
In the past, Hussle has acknowledged his involvement with the Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips, in particular in an interview with Complex Magazine in 2010. In the interview, Hussle was asked what he thought about some rappers like Lil Wayne or Jim Jones repping the Blood, another well-known street gang.
Here is Hussle’s reply:
If you 35, 28, or 30 years old, and you decide you’re gonna pick up a rag and start bangin’, and you can look yourself in the mirror and you still feel like you’re a man? That’s cool, do your thing. My concern is the n*ggas that are really in the shit. I’m more focused on giving solutions and inspiration more than anything. But to answer your question, I feel like it’s fraudulent. Straight up. If you ain’t put on to this sh*t, you wasn’t courted on, you ain’t going to the back of the buildings to fight, your homies didn’t get put on, you not from a gang. Not only are you not from a gang, if you ain’t press a line and put in work, not necessarily kill nobody but you know, put yours on the line. It ain’t just you a Blood when it’s convenient, cause you got a camera and it looks cool. When you around 100 Crips, you still a Blood. When 40-Glocc and them run up on you, you still a Blood. And I ain’t talking about Wayne. I got respect for they movement and I like the dude as an artist. But I’m just saying on some gangbang sh*t, when you go to the county jail and you walk in the court tank and it’s 50 of your enemies, you still gonna say the 60s (Rollin 60 Neighborhood Crips). Or you not a gangbanger. Your homies gonna hear about it, beat you up, kick you in your *ss, and you was for nothin’. I know in the real world in this shit, a lot of n*ggas wouldn’t make it. So like I said, it’s an overstanding I got about it. I look at it like these n*ggas is totally out of character.
Here’s what you need to know:
WATCH: Hussle Explains His Decision to Join the Crips in a 2014 Interview
In an interview with VLAD TV in 2014, Hussle explained his decision to join the Crips. He explained how it was important to carry the “legacy” of his community up and out of the streets and to the “corporate level,” clarifying that he didn’t “necessarily [mean] gang-banging,” but more the culture and spirit and tradition of his area.
When asked if he even had a choice in joining, he said that he did, adding that his family had no ties to the gang, given his mother’s small family and his father’s family being primarily back in Africa. To explain his decision to join, he said, “It was the combination…of being an age…I left my house kind of early, when I was probably like 14….and you know, I just was taking care of myself early on, I was doing things to try to get money.”