Credit: Press

Nipsey Hussle made a major impact during his 33 years on Earth. Despite only releasing one studio album, he made a name for himself with groundbreaking mixtapes, establishing himself as one of the best rappers on the West Coast. However, arguably the biggest single of his career was released in the final years of his life.

The late rapper, born and raised in Los Angeles, released his debut album, Victory Lap, in 2018 after signing a deal with Atlantic Records. The project was a commercial success, reaching number two on the Billboard 200 and receiving a nomination for ‘Best Rap Album’ at the Grammy Awards. It included ‘Grinding All My Life’, one of his most notable tracks.

‘Grinding All My Life’ is by far Nipsey’s most-streamed song on streaming platforms, racking up over 223 million Spotify streams. Not only is the song, produced by Murda Beatz and Mike and Keys, a certified anthem from a musical perspective, it truly embodies the mindset Nipsey pushed from the start of his career. He came from nothing, and the surroundings he was raised in helped motivate him every single day of his life, no matter what success came his way.

In the first verse, he raps, “I’m married to this game, that’s who I made my wife/ Said I’d die alone, I told that bitch she probably right/ One thing that’s for sure, not a stranger to this life/ Got a safe that’s full of Franklins and a shoulder full of stripes.” Nipsey was committed to hard work and had been through enough hardship not to back down when things got tough.

Speaking to NPR, Nipsey once revealed that ‘Grinding All My Life’ stemmed from asking Murda Beatz for a hard-hitting record to be played in nightclubs. As for the lyrics, he touched on a real-life story about an attempted robbery on one of his affiliates. That night, 50 Cent and Floyd Mayweather, who have beefed for years, were around him.

“I told Murda Beatz I needed something for the club,” he said. “I needed something that was up-tempo that could move people. Sonically, that’s the inspiration. I spoke about a real situation that took place in [Las] Vegas. 50 Cent and Mayweather were there. Some n*gga tried to rob one of the people that was with us for his jewellery. The charges got reversed, and it didn’t go so well for the other guy.”

Aside from that story, Nipsey also wanted to pack in his journey from quitting school at a young age to being self-made in the music industry. He was inspired to include his experience thanks to the heavy beat Murda Beatz provided.

“But other than that, I wanted to tell the truth,” he explained. All my life, I’ve been grinding. I stopped going to school when I was 14 and I was self-educated since then. But I pursued hustling and music full-time since then. It was just what the music sounded like to me.

“I wanted the album to be a collection of narratives and to represent real stories that took place in my life. So I had a real day, YG was hosting at the same club I was hosting at and 50 was there. We had all the cars out. And it was just a real night.”