And so we continue with this madness. Nipsy Hussle.

I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I was a big fan of Nipsy Hussle. A lot of the artists as of late are just wasting beats to me, with flow that seems to have been done completely independent of the music, repeated phrasings or rhymes for rhymes sake. And this critique is coming from a guy who grew up on Craig Mack and Nice & Smooth. I just don't listen to a lot of the new stuff. Maybe it's because I'm old, and that's what old people do. Or maybe it's because most of it's trash. Either or.

But since I heard that Nipsy met a tragic end and more than few friends of mine indicated that he was pretty tight, I went to see what was up. Aside from the fact that he looks like what I imagine Snoop's kids should look like (or like my cousin who does heating & air), it turns out he was actually pretty damn good. I actually had heard and liked his "Last time that I Check'ed" just out and about, but parsing through the rest of his cuts I could see the talent.

But the talent was the tip of the iceberg. On the same corner where he used to hustle and sell mix tapes on he'd literally bought up and opened stores and shops employing local people to help change the community. He was for all intents and purposes the person I had long wondered why every other rapper wasn't - the guy who did more than spend his money flexing. The short I watched, where he had his own store selling his own brand, next to a second store selling basic staples to his community, next to a barber was just fascinating to watch. He was a young man with vision, his latest big venture a co-working space and STEM center in the Crenshaw area that with the use of his celebrity could add a bit of melanin to the Silicon Valley area. Here was an entrepreneur who understood the basic premise of a rising tide lifts all boats.

I'm not going speculate on the reason for his death. Maybe it was because of his work on a documentary involving a controversial doctor. Maybe it was just some old gang shit. Maybe it was something else in between. In either case this man, who dreamt and worked towards elevating others is gone. And that's a pure tragedy. And that's the long and short of it, last time that I checked.