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March 31, 2019, 11:43 PM GMT / Updated April 1, 2019, 12:46 PM GMT By Alex Johnson and Andrew Blankstein
LOS ANGELES — The Grammy-nominated rapper Nipsey Hussle was killed in a shooting outside his clothing store in Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon. Two other men were shot, and a suspect remained at large.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's Crisis Response Team confirmed the news on Sunday night, saying, "Today we lost a great musician, Nipsey Hussle." It said it was "consoling and offering support to the family."
Hussle was shot multiple times in the parking lot at Marathon Clothing in South Los Angeles at about 3:25 p.m. and pronounced dead at a hospital,police sources said. One of the other men was being treated at a hospital, and the third man declined treatment, Los Angeles police Lt. Chris Martinez said.
No other information was immediately available, but just a couple of hours before, Hussle, 33, whose real name was Ermias Ashgedom, had tweeted, "Having strong enemies is a blessing."
Los Angeles Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff said Sunday night that he and Police Chief Michael Moore had been scheduled to meet with Hussle and representatives of Roc Nation, Jay-Z's entertainment agency and production company, on Monday to "talk about ways he could help stop gang violence and help us help kids."
"I'm so very sad," Soboroff said on Twitter.
A large crowd of people, many of them crying, gathered at the scene on Sunday as police and media helicopters whirred overhead.
One of them was Matthew Talley of Denver, the engineer and director known as Megatron.
"It ain't just Los Angeles. He was an inspiration that was bigger than Los Angeles," Talley said. "You see all these people out here?"
"He was really cool," Talley said. "He was a dope individual every time I met him."
Hussle's debut studio album, "Victory Lap," was nominated for Best Rap Album at this year's Grammy Awards.
Hussle had long been associated with the Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips, one of Los Angeles' largest street gangs, which he publicly acknowledged in a 2010 interview with Complex magazine.
In more recent years, however, Hussle had developed an interest in technology and community development, and he was part of a team of artists and entrepreneurs who developed Destination Crenshaw, an open-air museum devoted to honoring African-American artistic achievement.
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"In our culture, there's a narrative that says, 'Follow the athletes, follow the entertainers,'" he told the Los Angeles Times last year. "And that's cool, but there should be something that says, 'Follow Elon Musk, follow [Mark] Zuckerberg.'
Nipsey Hussle, who was shot multiple times outside his clothing store in Los Angeles, performs at the Warner Music pre-Grammy party at the NoMad Hotel on Feb. 7. Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images
"I think that with me being influential as an artist and young and coming from the inner city, it makes sense for me to be one of the people that's waving that flag," he said.
Hussle was also an investor in Vector 90, a co-working space in South Central Los Angeles, where young people can take classes in science, technology and mathematics. He called the center a "bridge between Silicon Valley and the inner city," saying at last year's Afrotech conference that he hoped to expand to other cities, like Atlanta, Washington and Baltimore.
In an interview last year with Forbes, Hussle said that as a youth, he'd fallen prey to the "ignorance and self-destructiveness in the narrative that was pushed on us through music in our generation."
"I see how damaging that was, for myself included, and we're all subject to the social pressure," he said. "I wasn't above it. Each of us are impacted by what's going on around us. For me, understanding the platform I have and who it speaks to, it's about being strategic."
"I wanted to redefine the lifestyle and what we view as important," he said. "When you hear 'buy back the block' as the narrative, that's powerful. That's a step towards redefining the expectation."
Hussle and two co-owners opened Marathon Clothing in June 2017 as a "smartstore," complete with a smartphone app on which fans could buy exclusive content and products.
"I wanted to open up a brick and mortar physical retail in this area and thought, 'What's the trajectory and likelihood of being successful as e-commerce grows?'" he said in an interview with Billboard at the time.
Hussle said his goal was to "create a theme park for the brand."
"We haven't seen that in hip-hop," he said. "We haven't seen someone create a real-world place where the brand lives and there's products."
Hussle's death deeply shook the worlds of music and sports, in which he was seen as an inspirational figure.
Issa Rae, the creator and star of the HBO series "Insecure," said Hussle had inspired her "to invest and own in our communities."
"He was a solid man who loved his woman, his family and his community," she said Sunday. "This hurts."
Eritrea's Minister of Information, Yemane G. Meskel, also honored the slain rapper, whose family is from the African country.
"Extremely saddened to hear the news of the tragic and untimely death of iconic recording artist/entrepreneur Ermias Asgedom (Nipsey Hussle)," Meskel tweeted. "RIP & condolences to his family."
Hussle visited Eritrea in April 2018, where he did an interview with Meskel's website about his music career and being back in the country for the first time in 14 years.
Hussle and the actor Lauren London were the parents of a 2½-year-old child; Hussle had other children from previous relationships, as well.
Xerxestheokay on April 1st, 2019 at 02:06 UTC »
Back in 2014 Nipsey was performing in my town. My younger brother ran into him at burger joint earlier in the day. My brother told him he was a fan & Nip actually chatted with him for a while.
Then my brother asked Nip if he can wear a sweatshirt my brother designed-my brother was a budding clothing designer at the time. Nip didnt hesitate and basically said give me a large and an XL. That night he wore it in front of a packed house for his concert.
Years later he carried my brother's designs at his store. The store he was killed in front of.
So tragic. He was a legit good person.
Edit: 1) This transpired in 2014. My brother has since left doing this work. He's a regular 9-5er now. 2) Even if he was still doing this I'd think it's bad form to advertise for him by using this tragedy.
EnoughPM2020 on April 1st, 2019 at 01:00 UTC »
Article Summary:
According to Police sources, Rapper Nipsey Hussle, whose album "Victory Lap" was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2019 Grammy Awards, was shot outside his clothing store in Los Angeles and pronounced dead upon arrival, with 2 other men seriously injured when being sent to the hospital. A suspect remained at large.
The shooting occurred at Marathon Clothing on Slauson Avenue in South Los Angeles. Just a couple of hours before the shooting, Hussle, 33, whose real name was Ermias Ashgedom, had tweeted, "Having strong enemies is a blessing."
In a 2010 interview with Complex magazine, Hussle acknowledged that he had long been associated with the Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips, an influential LA street gang. In more recent years, Hussle became interested in technology and was part of a team of artists and entrepreneurs who developed Destination Crenshaw - an open air museum devoted to honoring African-American artistic achievement.
During the opening ceremony of a separate project, Vector 90, which aim to bridge the gap in terms of science and technology representation for minorities, Hussle, who was a co-organizer, said in an Interview with Los Angeles Times: "In our culture, there's a narrative that says, 'Follow the athletes, follow the entertainers.' And that's cool but there should be something that says, 'Follow Elon Musk, follow [Mark] Zuckerberg.’ I think that with me being influential as an artist and young and coming from the inner city, it makes sense for me to be one of the people that's waving that flag."
Hussle, at the same interview with the Times, said that while growing up, he had developed a deep love of both music and technology — the latter of which led him to combine his interests in several entrepreneurial pursuits, including the store outside of which he was shot on Sunday. Hussle called it a “smart store” because visitors could use an app to enhance their experience while shopping for his fashion brand, the Marathon Clothing.
“I grew up in gang culture,” he said. “We dealt with death, with murder. It was like living in a war zone, where people die on these blocks and everybody is a little bit immune to it. I guess they call it post-traumatic stress, when you have people that have been at war for such a long time. I think L.A. suffers from that because it’s not normal yet we embrace it like it is after a while.”
Hussle was born and raised in the Crenshaw neighborhood of South LA, his father was of Eritrean descent and his mother was of African American descent. Hussle and actor Lauren London began dating in 2013 had a 2-and-a-half-year-old child. Hussle had 1 children from his previous relationship, while Lauren had children from a previous relationship with rapper Lil Wayne. As the news of his shooting spread, numerous performers and artists such as Lebron James, Stephen Curry, and 50 Cent tweeted for best wishes quickly.
Here is a not so well replicated archive of the original article, the title of the article starts after "Crime & Courts": https://ia601401.us.archive.org/4/items/RapperNipseyHussleKilledInShootingOutsideHisL.A.Store/Rapper%20Nipsey%20Hussle%20killed%20in%20shooting%20outside%20his%20L.A.%20store.html
JohanKaramazov on April 1st, 2019 at 00:17 UTC »
Never listened to his music but I heard that he did a lot of community outreach. May he RIP.