In a new feature from the New York Times, numerous members of the hip-hop community who were close to Nipsey Hussle speak about how his death impacted them. Specifically, the Game, Mozzy, Charlamagne tha God, and manager Wack 100 talked about what his murder means for rappers who strike it big and stay in the neighborhoods they grew up in.
"Everything about Nipsey was Crenshaw and Slauson. Those are the two streets that ended up taking his life," Game explained. The two of them spoke just 24 hours before Nipsey was shot about "how to move, and dip in and dip out" of the neighborhoods they grew up in. The Game is a Compton native who has continued to show love to his roots, just like Nip did. "'I know, I know, I just gotta get this right for my people,'" Game recalled the late rapper as saying.
"I ain’t going to lie, I’m kind of shaking right now," Mozzy said. "Most rappers die in their own city.... Every day you’re taking one of the biggest risks of your life by being a rapper and living in your community, or continuing to pull up there. But you take that risk out of a love for the people." Mozzy, as the feature notes, had a small altercation in his own neighborhood relatively recently. Mozzy added, that Nip "was supposed to be untouchable."
Charlamagne, meanwhile, indicated that Nipsey's murder would affect how people move in their old neighborhoods in the future. "It makes you constantly question yourself and say, ‘Should I give back and go back, or should I give back and not go back?’ And how much going back is too much?” he explained.
Read the New York Times feature here.
