Straight out of LA’s Crenshaw neighbourhood, the late Nipsey Hussle, along with artists like Kendrick Lamar and Tyler The Creator, was putting LA back on the hip-hop map after years of trap domination by Atlanta before his early demise.
As well as being a respected musician, Hussle was hailed for his philanthropy and local activism efforts. While alive, the rapper funded improvements to deprived neighbourhood schools, spent time with Crenshaw students to steer them away from crime and made sure to denounce gun violence in his music.
While he was ascending in the industry, Hussle (Ermias Ashgedom) got signed to Epic Records. However, in 2010, he took a creative risk by departing from the label to create his own, All Money In.
The first project he released through his label was his mixtape, The Marathon. He followed up this body of work with The Marathon Continues, and in 2013, he unleashed his groundbreaking Crenshaw as a free download.
In an interview with the legendary hip-hop magazine The Source in 2018, one year before his murder, the West Coast native unveiled his own label that produced some of his best music and chose his favourite project, stating, “My favourite overall project is probably The Marathon just because of how pure that is to me and the space I was in when I was writing those records.”
He continued, “It was like my back was really against the wall. I put a lot of those feelings into that album.” Nipsey released all his music through his own label following his departure from Epic.
When asked about his favourite Nipsey Hussle song, Ashgedom responded, “My favourite song. That’s rough. That’s a hard one. But maybe, a record off Mailbox Money called ‘That’s How I Knew’ — and it’s not because of the technical or the lyrical but mainly because of the feeling it provides.”
He also gave an honorary mention to some of his other classic tracks and spoke about his favourite verses, unveiling “Maybe ‘Face The World’ off Crenshaw. Maybe ‘Bigger Than Life’ off The Marathon. It’s a few that’s really important to me. ‘All Get Right’ off Crenshaw is really one of my favourite energies. Then, my favourite verse will probably be the second verse on ‘Face The World’.”
You can listen to ‘That’s How I knew’ from Mailbox Money in the video below.
