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In 2013, the week before I dropped 'Crenshaw,' 'Complex' wrote an article that said that Nipsey Hussle is one of the top 25 underperforming artists. I was so offended that I responded with my own opinion about these journalists - their point of view is not validated in our culture.
I was having a lot of mixed feelings about the independent world as well as the label world. I feel like I've been in the game a long time, and you know, when it come to labels not seeing a fella being around the last five years, it's like, it's hard to convince them what I can do.
Even when I was out on tour I used to fly home on the weekends to be with my girl and be with my family to see my kids grow up and just be there for them. When they started going to school it was like that too whether it was homework or if I have to go up to the school I was there.
The most important decision I've made in business? The choices of people I have around me. When I first started I brought everybody with me, my homies from the neighborhood, criminals. I just said, 'Come on everybody, we made it.' Then I had to realize we didn't make it. I made it.
What drives me is makin hits and keepin tha fans happy n wantin more. I can't stay put for long so I need to be workin and crankin out hits and projects. Touring. Music. TV. Films. Headphones. Football leagues. That's what keeps it movin. U aint gotta get ready when you stay ready.
If I go to an awards ceremony, I wear a suit, of course I do. I am proud to be there. If there are young kids looking at pictures of me, I want them to feel that they should long for the opportunity to go somewhere really smart and wear a beautiful suit, rather than to reject that.
I think the really significant part of it for us, for the western world, is we have a lot to gain from the Tibetans - there are certain lessons that are within Tibetan culture. I mean understandings of compassion and of nonviolence that are things that we really lack in our society.
I always revisit duality because I think it's a conflict we all have. I think we all leave our house and go to work, and we put on the cape and become superheroes. That's what we do. It's how we move through life and handle negativity: you do everything you can to stay away from it.
Where else can you go with respect to the work, lyrics, and message of the music? If you are past high school age, you can get by with saying very little the first or second time around. However, after a while you know you are going to have to say something beyond high school stuff.
Bosses respect bosses. I can't follow anyone's click unless it's benefiting me and unless they have their own vision, a lot of people that are in a certain position are there because they were in the right place at the right time not just cos they have the right movement themselves.
I think the Internet is right on time. I think it's very important. It's reaching out to millions of people. Even the most slimiest and grimiest hood cats out got iPhones and Smartphones so they're able to view everything on the Internet, so they're well in tuned to what's going on.
What inspires me is the desire to be on. The desire to be successful. The desire to reach people through my music and make a living off it and never have to do anything else. Being able to do music full time and travel the world and share this music with everybody. That's the dream.
It's not hard to get your way when it's your way or the highway. People either follow suit or they're not around. I don't really like the sound of that, 'cause that sounds like a temper tantrum. I'm just very black and white when it comes to my business. There's really no gray area.
People in the U.S. always got to be spoon-fed. If it's something to difficult to understand, they don't give it a chance. They want something real simple that they can sing along with and play in the clubs and that's about it. In the UK, their whole mind set is completely different.
Sometimes I look at new artists trying to come out or trying to make their name and it's like they're coming into the game blind. They don't really know what the world is going to expect from them and they really trying to get in where they fit in but me I almost got the red carpet.
My wife, she knows me better than anybody else. She knows what I'm struggling with, and she knows where I'm at. And I have friends, pastors, and it's good not to have my only friends be people who think I'm special. It's really good to have people who think I'm just an ordinary guy.
Trap music to me isn't just a sound. If we're talking about what I think trap music is, I couldn't say that I created it or no one created it, because if you were living the same life that I was living and you're speaking about it, we just speaking about our endeavors in that world.
We met Ferg at one of our shows in L.A. She gave us her number. For the song 'Shut Up' on Elephunk, we needed a vocalist. Someone said 'yo, remember that white girl - we should get her in the studio.' Since then, we've become friends. She's one of the guys now, she isn't just a girl.
We get better product when the focus is on the fans and the artists - all artists; musical artists; singers, the graphic designers, the painters, the DJs, I mean everybody, the writers. We can't allow ourselves to feel as if we're not important in the equation when we are everything!
Before I was rapping, I was always around the rap game, even though I was in the streets. I would be at all the parties and all the events, and I was pretty hard to miss. I was one of the few Spanish cats sitting there with jewelry on, Dapper Dan suits. It was pretty hard to miss me.
I feel like I have a very unique perspective especially for someone in the hip-hop genre. I'm not afraid to explore it, and how my upbringing then shapes my music and being a New York kid and all of that stuff...that's really the most unique thing I can offer to the music in general.
That is our first amendment, freedom of speech. But I also believe that we have an obligation to the youth to be somewhat responsible in what we say on records. But I think that comes with age. I think that comes with artists growing up and becoming assured of who they are as people.
My thing is related to who I am as a person. The clothes are an extension of me. The music is an extension of me. All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I'm feeling at the time, whatever direction I'm heading in. And hopefully, everyone follows.
This game wears on you. It tears you down. It's perpetual motion for some people who've achieved a level of independence, like Madonna and Jay-Z - they don't need to do music anymore. But there's people who need it. And in that need, that's when it's tough and it tears you to pieces.
There are so many rules in Judaism, and if you get into them and you get obsessed and you have the kind of life that I have, it can make you a very unhappy person. It can make everything complicated and more stressful than it needs to be, so I kind of loosened the knots a little bit.
On the radio there's only a certain amount of artists: Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye, T-Pain, Lil Wayne, T.I., Mary J Blige, Alicia Keys. Other artists are achieving things that are really special, they have a hard time getting people's attention. Music has been just a little bit lacklustre.
It goes to extremes - from people saying I'm the best of all-time to people saying, 'I hate that white boy.' Who cares? At the end of the day, if people don't like you, they're not your friends anyway. They're not going to be supporting you by buying your tickets and CDs and clothes.
I don't develop anything. I don't practice, I don't rehearse. I just go out there, and it's just amazing and unpredictable and spontaneous every single time. It's the most cultivating incredible performance that you can go and see live for the amount of money that you can see it for.
Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's laws wrong, it learned to walk without having feet. Funny, it seems to by keeping it's dreams; it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.
It just seemed like Buddhism, especially Tibetan Buddhism - because that's mainly what I've been exposed to - was a real solid organization of teachings to point someone in the right direction. Some real well thought out stuff. But I don't know, like, every last detail about Buddhism.
I think the rebuilding of the city has to start with the spirit first. So the music, the vibe, the connection spiritually with the artists. Everybody out here is the main key. A lot of people are still in a lot of tough situations. My heart still goes out to the people of New Orleans.
When I got a chance to rap, I just busted my ass. When I got a chance to act, I busted my ass. Anytime I get a chance. I'm not wasting time. I won't do it if I'm not doing it 110 percent. You've got to work hard if you want to play hard. I like to play, but I know I gotta bust my ass.
If you make good music, people believe in you, but you have to have your websites poppin', you got to be on these blogs, you got to be at all these types of events. You got to be everywhere, and doing everything, and the more they see and hear you, the more chance you have at success.
I don't care who you talk about down south, Boosie gonna win. I'm the only one to put out a whole album, with more songs, so I don't care who said what. The fans tell the truth. I got real fans - more fans than everybody, so Boosie gonna win [in Hip Hop Survivor: Down South Edition.].
As a kid, I was really into performing. I would do choruses, I would do musicals, whatever it was. And then, as a teenager, I got into an acting class at SUNY Purchase for gifted kids, and that really turned me on to material beyond musicals, Sam Shepard, and Christopher Durang plays.
When I listen to music, there's usually some aspect of that music that I like, and that's what I take and try to bring into my own music. Bringing in other musicians to collaborate with is a good way for me to test out new ways or make music that I might have not discovered on my own.
I have a whole regimen to my day: my vocal warm-ups, my prayers, my meditations... I pray three times a day. I try to have a real experience praying, not just do it. I really get deep into the idea and really try to get somewhere with it, to have an in-depth understanding of the idea.
I want to sound like an instrument. I want my voice and my words to marry the beat. I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that's been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.
Through "deprogramming" or cult intervention the only issues that are addressed focus upon the specific group and group involvement. The subject of such an intervention subsequently may leave the group and go on with their life reassuming their own basic individual values and beliefs.
I'd clash with my dad over other things, you know, like difference of opinion and me getting testosterone, you know what I'm saying? Me feeling like I'm a little tough, being a teenager. But my big brother would come in drunk and really, really try my dad and I didn't want to do that.
Look at music for what it's worth around the world and not just America. In other countries, people are still buying CDs and going to record stores. But in America, it's all about digital. The game is breaking down. But, look at me, you need to know how to play the game the right way.
I'm not an artist that has a big, huge radio record that's going to be on BET. I'm not, at this point, gunning for like, "Oh, I'm gonna kill them in the first week." But as people slowly discover the album they realize it's better than a lot of what they've been listening to all year.
I was about 14 when I became a Christian. I had been going to youth group, and I'd heard the Gospel preached, and then suddenly it all started to click. God opened my eyes to see Jesus for who He really was. After I trusted Christ, the Lord changed my entire perspective on everything.
A lot of people, black, white, mexican, young or old, fat or skinny have a problem being true to they self. They have a problem looking in the mirror and looking directly into their own souls. Only reason I am who I am today is because I can look directly into my face and find my soul
I respect anybody that's doin' their thing, and doin' better than I'm doin, or at least tryin'. I really don't need to hate on the next person. We're all just tryin' to get one thing at the end of the day, everybody's tryin' to get money and be successful, and just enjoy what they do.
When we look at these types of things it echoes to lessons we haven't learned from the past. We still don't see Rome as a negative thing; we glorify the Roman Empire. It was a fascist state under the control of an incredibly authoritarian militant pre-emptive striking genocidal regime.
I'm saying let's demonstrate what Jesus had done in us so the world may see a new way, God's way, Jesus' way the picture of redemption that Jesus has done in us. So Jesus redeems us and we desire to go to the world and demonstrate that so that others can see what redemption looks like.
Once when I was at Newark Mall, me, my friends, my cousin, and my bodyguard were shopping and looking for suitcases cuz we had all these clothes. On our way out, two girls started whispering. The next thing we know, we had at least 200-300 people walking behind us, like the whole mall!
Music is my first love and the thing that I feel extremely connected to. I feel like I still have a long way to go within that in terms of being able to perform and write songs. But, yeah, I really hope 'The Possession' opens doors for me to do more acting, because I really enjoyed it.
Most of all, what I've learned is I need to share what it is that I know. And it's the whole reason I've done what I've done for as long as I've done it. It's that I'm able to use what I know in order to help someone else grow. And that's exactly what happened on Sisterhood of Hip Hop.