It’s not uncommon to hear about rappers leaving their neighborhood, plagued by the narrative they switched up on the place that raised them. Nipsey Hussle represented Crenshaw to the fullest. It wasn’t only a hood mentioned in his songs, but a place where he grew from a young entrepreneur to a Grammy-nominated rapper and accomplished businessman. The plaza housing his flagship Marathon clothing store was the same spot he grew up hustling. It’s no wonder he purchased a corner of the plaza before announcing that he dropped “a couple million” to acquire the entire plaza. Nip, who constantly preached about the value of Black ownership, was fighting against corporate gentrification in the neighborhood he grew up in on a grassroots level.

On Sunday afternoon, Nipsey Hussle was fatally shot at the age of 33. In front of the same store where his professional career as a rapper and entrepreneur began. To say his death was simply a loss for the hip-hop would be completely disrespectful toward his life’s work. Nip was a beacon of hope, an inspiration to the inner-cities, and a leader. As an artist, he embodied West Coast hip-hop in every way possible. A storyteller with an expansive homespun vernacular, Nip dropped gems about the music industry and the streets in the same breath. “And where I’m from, homicide boost the economy/ Pay taxes to the corners and put in work, it’s a policy,” he rapped on “Hussle In The House,” a bleak foreshadowing of his own tragic fate.

Download his top 21 essential tracks