Switched on Pop - Five years later, the legacy of Nipsey Hussle's "Victory Lap"

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

Five years ago, Los Angeles rapper Nipsey Hussle released Victory Lap, his only full length album. It was the high point of a career stretching back to the mid 2000s, when Hussle started releasing mixtapes on his own record label — mixtapes that brought him respect from artists like Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar, but were not widely heard.  Victory Lap brought him both the critical acclaim and commercial success he deserved — It hit #2 on the Billboard 200, and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Album. But only a little over a year after its release, Hussle was shot to death outside his clothing store and community center in Crenshaw. In some ways, Hussle’s tragic end has overshadowed his incredible life as a musician and community activist. In this conversation with Justin Tinsley, host of the podcast King of Crenshaw, we listen deeply to Victory Lap to hear Nipsey’s identity as an artist and consider the legacy of his debut album on its 5th anniversary. Songs Discussed Nipsey Hussle - Victory Lap, Dedication, Hussle and Motivate, Last Time That I Checc'd, Real Big Arctic Monkeys - Knee Socks Jay-Z - Hard Knock Life Snoop Dogg - Y'all Gone Miss Me More Listen to the King of Crenshaw podcast. Check out more of Justin's work Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Attention Spotify. Has arrived the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera, a fragrance intense with character gourmet and addictive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy, caramelized, and tonka-tostata. A combination that seduce from the first instant and he has a wea. Good Girl Jasmine Absolute, hypnotica, irresistible. Discover it now and let you embover for susentia. Welcome to Switch on Pop.

I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. Five years ago, Los Angeles rapper Nipsey Hustle released Victory Lap, his only full-length album. It was the high point of a career stretching back to the mid-2000s when Hustle started releasing mixtapes on his own record label, mixtapes that brought him respect from artists like J. Z and Kendrick Lamar, but were not widely heard. Victory Lap brought him both the critical acclaim and commercial success he deserved. It hit number two on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap album.

But just a little over a year after its release, Hustle was shot to death outside his clothing store and community center in Crenshaw. In some ways, Hustle's tragic end has overshadowed his incredible life as musician and community activist. So in this conversation, we want to shift the focus to Nipsey's identity, as an artist and think about the legacy of his debut album on his fifth anniversary. To do that, I'm thrilled to welcome Justin Tinsley, journalist, author, and host of the 30 for 30 podcast series, King of Crenshaw, all about the life and sound of Nipsey Hustle. Justin, thanks so much for joining us on Switched on Pop. Nate, man, thank you so much. It's always an honor to talk about Nipsey Hustle, and in particular, this album, because it's such a fascinating project to discuss and dissect.

Let's start with the title of this project, Victory Lab. What does that signify and how does it fit into Nipsey Hustle's larger music philosophy? It symbolizes everything he preached in terms of his work ethic, his drive, his inspirations, his aspirations, and his goals. He had earlier projects called The Marathon and the Marathon Continues, so the whole running a race, running a lap type of thing. it really spoke to just the journey that he went on throughout his entire career. Granted, he was never a perennial billboard artist. He was never on top 40 radio or anything. But if you paid attention to hip-hop and you understood the movies and the shakers and the people

who were actually making noise on the hip-hop scene, Nipsey Hustle was always part of that conversation. So this album, it became kind of like an urban legend and a myth in a way. It was like, okay, well, where is victory that? And then you actually get Victory Lap. And it was just this beautiful collection of songs that if you were familiar with Nipsey Hustle story, you were like, this is perfect. This is what a debut album should sound like. And it honestly sounded like a Victory Lap. So the title made sense when you understood the history behind it.

And the very first song on this album has the same title. Victory Lap features the vocalist Stacey Barth. And I think it provides an introduction to some of the themes on this record. And one big one is the theme of financial independence and ownership. I'm integrated vertically. Y'all niggins integrated vertically. What's that about, Justin? What's he talking about here?

Nipsey tells this story that when he was starting, starting off early in his music career. This had to be around the late 2000s, early, early, early 2010s. And somebody pulled him to the side. It was like, look, you can't just be a rapper. You know what I mean? You can't just be that. You have to give people a reason to want to check out your music beyond just the music because there's a billion rappers out here now. So how are you going to differentiate yourself? So business was always important to Nipsey. Entrepreneurship was always important to him. When he says I'm integrated vertically, this is just like, yeah, I have a dope album on the way, but look, I'm also involved in my community. I'm preaching these lessons of

financial independence and freedom. And in a lot of ways, that's always going to be his biggest calling card, even beyond the music. When we're talking about Nipsey Hustle advocating for ownership and investment, I think it's important to recognize that he's not just talking about his own personal gain, that his ambition was always to make money for himself in order that he could give back to his community. How do you see him using hip hop as a way of not just creating really fun anthemic songs for people to enjoy, but also as a medium for transmitting literacy and financial information and community building. Nipsey was from an area where, you know, he saw the impact of NWA and guys like Ice Cube. And he always spoke about the

importance of people like Tupac in his life. And yes, you know, they made fun songs. They made dope songs. But he also saw the strength in what hip hop could provide, the opening and the conversations that it could help create and the change it could help create, you know, in its best ways. And so Nipsey understood that I can reach a lot of people in a lot of different ways that politicians can't, or maybe even newscasters can't because I know what goes on in these communities because I'm from this community. I've survived these things. I've done these things, good, bad, and indifferent. And I can tell people through my music that like, hey, look, these are the lessons that we need to better ourselves. And he learned that from different people.

And he was never one to learn a lesson and keep it to himself because he understands. the power that came with transmitting, you know, beneficial information because, you know, he didn't want to see people get beat up by the police. He didn't want to see, he didn't want to see more people get killed due to gang violence. And if he could help curb that, if he can help enrich his community instead of demean it, then that's a currency that you really can't put a dollar sign on. And he understood that the medium that was hip-hop could help him achieve this. And he did it in so many ways. So when you listen to his music, especially, Especially people from that South Central area, they was like, yo, I know this dude.

I've seen him around and what he's saying he's actually doing. And so that type of connection, that type of authenticity, you can't put a dollar sign on it. It's just something that you are. It's not something that you can get. Nipsey Hustle doesn't just showcase his lyricism on this track. And I was really surprised to learn that the vocal hook on Victory Lab. is actually an interpolation from a song by the British rock band, The Arctic Monkeys. It's their track, Knee Sox.

Maybe on the surface, kind of a left field interpolation to find at the start of this Nipsey Hustle album, but maybe also a testament to the diverse influences that went in to the beats of this album. One of the stereotypes about hip-hop over the years is that it's so insular that it only cares about itself, that it's not inspired by other genres that came before it, lived with it, or even came after it. And the best hip-hop artists, you're fans of music. Your fans are not just the music that you make, but music, honestly, that you can't make. I interviewed Mike and Keys for the Crenshaw podcast. Mike and Keys were two of Nipsy's longtime producers who produced the bulk of Victory Lab. And when you talk to those guys, they are music heads. And they understood it's like, yo, if we can take our inspiration from all types of music that we love and give it a hip-hop spin, it's just going to make our sound that much more unique.

That's the first thing you hear on the album is basically the Arctic Monkey sample. Even before you get to Nipsey, it came out of left field, but it fit. perfectly in that pocket. And it feels like that sample just reflect and it empowered everything Nipsey was saying in that song from financial empowerment to just hustling and understanding like this is my goal. This is what I want. And this is what I survived. And you're going to, I'm going to give you the whole story. But first, I'm going to get this random ass sample to start the album and you're not going to know what to expect from from there on out. If we jump around a little bit on the album Victory Lap, we can listen to another track called Hustle and Motivate.

Ooh. Pull up and motorcats. I got a show today. It's all I'm trying to do. Hustle and Motivate. Hustle the Hove away. Nipsey says Hustle the Hoveaway, a reference to JZ, I think an inspirational figure for Nipsey Hustle. and not coincidentally, the source of the beat in Hustle and Motivate is the JZ track, Hard Knock Life.

Take the bass line out. Uh-huh. Bound. Significantly slowed down. This track gives us an opportunity to learn a little bit about Nipsey Hustle's approach to composition. and songwriting. What was his style when it came to writing raps and working in the recording studio? You see people like Lil Wayne or like Gucci Man who can just like knock out like five,

six, seven songs a day and they just have mixtape after mixtape after mixtape. I call it the Tupacian work ethic, because Tupac was the same way. You know, some artists are like that, but some who sit with music for a while and like, you know what, I'm gonna listen to the beat, I'm a vibe out, I'm a sweet, smoke, I'm going to do whatever. And when I get inspired to make the music, I'm going to make it. And, you know, that was Nipsey. It wasn't like he, obviously, he wasn't lazy by any means, but he was very meticulous about what he said on records and then the records that he released,

which is why you don't see a lot of posthumous Nipsey Hustle music in the way that you see with other artists. So he was very meticulous when it came to the studio. And anybody who ever spent a lot a time in the studio with him, whether it be his close friends like Cobby Supreme and Jaystone or his producers, 1500 or nothing, Mike and Keyes, they'll tell you that like, Nipsey will record, but then he would just leave. I'm like, you know what? I'll be back. I'll be back 8 a.m. tomorrow morning and I'll finish the song. And this is one of them. And hustle and motivate was one of those songs that was quite literally pieced together. You talk about the JZ sample. And you can't talk, you can't talk about the JZ sample without talking about the influence that JZ had

on Nipsey himself. So when Nipsey understands, like, yo, I got a JZ sample on this song, I got to come correct. Because this is like one of my idols. So eventually JZ and Nipsey eventually become really good friends. And he's like, I got to deliver on this track.

I'm sampling one of his most known songs. And obviously, the end result is a true classic. It's one of the signature Nipsey Hustle standout song. Yeah. The backstory behind it is quite hilarious. because honestly, it's still a mystery about who's on the hook. Let's listen to that hook now. So how did this mystery hook come to be, Justin?

So the beat had already been made for a while. Like the Jay-Z sample had been there. Of course, they docked it up over time. But the foundation for the beat was already there. Black Sam, who's nipped. He Hustle's older brother told me the story where he was like, he came to the studio and he expected to hear finish record. And so he's looking around the studio and he sees this guy in the studio and Sam's like,

who the fuck is this guy? He was like, this guy is like, he's wearing like a, you know, one of those, like a young thug kilt. And like he just walked. He doesn't look like somebody who would hang out with Nipsey and his crew is what I'm saying. And people were like, who, he's like, who the fuck is this guy? Get him out of the studio. Like we don't like, that's a.

family atmosphere with Nipsey and Sam and all of those people. So if they don't know you, you really can't be around. And so somebody gets in Sam's ear and was like, yo, that's the dude who did the hook. And he was like, he did that? He was like, oh shit, you can stay. Yeah, no, it's fun. You can stay. And so something fast forward a little bit. Nipsey comes to the studio and he's thinking somebody else is going to do the hook. And he sees the guy in the studio. And Nipsey's like, man, what the fuck? Who's this dude like, an incense in my studio, like, fucking out my energy. He was like, what the fuck is going on here?

Sam's like, that's the dude who did the hook. And Nipsey was like, oh, he can stay. He can stay. And so when I asked the question, I asked Sam and I asked $1,500 and nothing. And I'm like, so who is this guy? And it was like, yo, to this day, we don't know. I'm like, what do you mean you don't know who the guy is? Like, yo, it's like, we saw him.

He did the hook. He did the hook. He stayed in the studio for a little bit. And then we, like, we don't know. We never saw him again. It was like, you mean to tell me the guy who did the hook to one of Nipsey Hustle's signature records? You didn't get a name.

You didn't get a phone number, an email, an aim, something or anything. It was like, no, we don't know. We don't know who he is. I'm like, this guy is basically a Grammy nominated songwriter at this point. Yeah. And he doesn't want that credit. But, like, to this day, they still don't know who dude is. And if he's listening to this, and I don't know his name,

you created a classic because when you listen to that production and the, you know, the engineering, everything sounds so crisp on that album, but in that song in particular. So when Nipsey is telling you that story, he was like, remember, I came out of the county with nothing to lose. And then that hook just drops in. It's like, oh, man, this is beautiful shit right here. And so I just wish I knew dude's name so I could give him the proper credit that he deserves.

It's such a wild story. I honestly don't think I've ever heard of anything quite like it. It still trips me out to this day. And I have to say, I was looking at the lyric website, Genius.com, and I notice that they have in brackets above the hook a name, which is Maurice David Wade. And when you Google that, you find a singer who has a few credits. So maybe this is our missing.

mystery singer. Maybe Maurice David Wade is starting to belatedly take some credit for as you say, like singing one of the most iconic hooks on this album. Yeah, look, if that's really him, then by all, I need to look him up and see if I can contact him. Be like, bro, you

like you did a major service to this album. Yes. I can't promise we'll solve any further musical mysteries, but after we take a quick break, we will listen to one of the biggest commercial hits off this album and maybe hear a little different side of Nipsey Hustle. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it.

What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have

inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Last time that I checked was the highest charting song on the billboard from this Nipsey Hustle debut album, Victory Lap. And one of the first things I noticed when I was listening to it was the strong influence of the Los Angeles G-Funk sound on this track. Last time that I checked, it was five chains on my neck. It was no smut on my rap. That time that I checked.

That high whining synth line at the start of mid, no sweat. Last time that I checked. I'm the streets voice out west. Legendary self-made progress. Last time that I checked. That high whining synth line at the start of this is redolent of so many G-Funk productions of the 90s and 2000s

by producers like Dr. Dre and rappers like Snoop Dog. You can hear something similar on a Snoop Dog track like y'all gonna miss me. And throughout this album, I think there's a lot of G-Funk influence. Is this Nipsey Hustle maybe paying homage to some of the predecessors of Los Angeles hip-hop? Yeah, I believe so. And again, you know, it's his producers, 1500 mic and keys. These were all young black men who, at the time when Dre and Quick and Death Row were all doing their things. They're young kids. They're outside in LA. And they're hearing this music and

the impact that it has on not just them, but they're friends and just the community. And they know that this music is timeless. So, like, it sticks with you. So when you're in a position to actually make music like that, you want that same type of reaction. And you also want to pay homage to a generation of music before you because you're also putting people on to that. Because the people who listen to you may not be readily familiar or as deeply familiar with the death rows and the G-Funks and the Nate dogs, the DJ Quicks, dog pounds, all that, all that type of good stuff. So it's a nod to the past while also basically stamping himself.

It's like, look, I'm not a billboard, darling. I've never been one to try to make a song for the radio. So if you take this and you play it on the radio, just know it's still going to be authentically me. You know, DJ head, the great DJ head, I would say out in LA. He tells a very, very funny story. So, you know, Nipsey brings him in. He wants him to listen to some cuts from Victory Laps.

And he was like, yo, this is dope. But you got to give the people some slaps, bro. And by that, you got to give them a hit. It's like, I'm not saying, like, dumb yourself down and whore yourself out to get a radio record. But you got to get the people some slaps because, yes, you want to be critically acclaimed. but to be critically acclaimed, you've got to have something that you give people to draw them in.

So you've got to give them that. And, you know, Nipsey could have taken that. He could have taken it to heart and felt some type of way about it, but Nipsey took it as a challenge. And Nipsey told him, like, bro, I fuck with you, like, because you keep it a buck, basically.

And, you know, one thing led to another, and this is the record that they came back with. That's interesting to hear, Justin, because you listen to this song, and it's got a lot of braggadocio, it's got a lot of strutting. But then some of the same themes that we've heard throughout this album also appear.

You know, he says, I taught you how to charge more than what they paid for you. So there we're back to that theme of financial independence agency ownership. Yeah. I laid down the game for you niggins, taught you how to charge more than what they pay for you niggins.

On the whole fan for you niggins, reinvest, double up, then explain. As you said, this track slaps. It's fun to listen to. It's the most commercially successful song off this album, Victory Lap. But I don't know that the average person would have necessarily been familiar with it. And in fact, there was some controversy recently when the TV show Family Guy made a joke about Nipsey Hustle being a rapper who, quote,

I'd never heard of and then was told to care immensely about, end quote. This caused some consternation in certain corners of the internet, but I do recognize that he may not have been as mainstream as some of his colleagues in hip-hop. And I'm curious if you think that was because of his sound, because of his choice to be an independent artist for most of his career, or simply because of his priorities as an artist. Nipsey says it a lot. in songs, he says it a lot in interviews.

He was like, bro, we took the stairs. We didn't take the elevator. Columine in my trigger head. Still I rise and I took the stairs, fill a fire, so different glare. The importance of that is because he always wanted to own the rights to his own story, his own journey. He didn't want it to, he could have signed with major labels.

He could have signed with majors and be like, yo, we'll have a song out by next summer and, but you gotta work with this producer. You have to make this type of record. Nipsey didn't like being told how to make his art because for him, art was personal. And art can't be personal if you have too many cooks in the kitchen. So that work ethic is on display on another track on Victory Lap called Dedication. And this track features Kendrick Lamar, a rapper who seems to have looked up to Nipsey Hustle.

And I say that because he talks about it a little bit on the track. Here's Kendrick. Kendrick L said you do it's on with nip. K'd out here better grip. I said he a man first. You hear the words out his lips about flourishing from the streets to black businesses. Level four yard living given to force imprisonment. Listen close my nigger.

Kendrick says about Nipsey. He's a man first. You hear the words out his lips about flourishing from the streets to black businesses. It's a moment when you understand that the philosophy that Nipsey Hustle is communicating on this record is really reaching his peers in the hip-hop world. To win the respect of your peers in a very real way just by being yourself, that's heavy, man, and that's deep. And to hear Kendrick say that on a song with him while he was still alive,

I'm sure it meant a lot to Nipsey as well. Yeah. Because by 2018, I mean, Kendrick Lamar is a star of stars. You know, in terms of superstar power, He is the bigger. He's the superstar on that record, whereas Nipsey is not yet a superstar. You know, Nipsey is making that turn towards that.

But by then, Kendrick had already had good kid Mad City and, you know, to Pimp a Butterfly and Dam and the Black Panther soundtrack and, you know, all the other projects in between. So Kendrick is that guy. But for Kendrick to sit here and be like, no, what this guy, what Nipsey Hustle was saying, is very important. And it's just like people see him, oh, Nipsey, Rolling 60s Crip. And, you know, Kendrick Lamar is from Compton.

He grew up in the same sort of environment. He grew up in the same type of environment. So for him to sit here and be like, no, what you're not going to do is label this man by the set that he claims because he was Ermius Askadam long before he was Ermius, the rolling 60. He was Ermius Askadum long before he was Nipsey Hustle. And so for him to say that, I think that was a powerful head nod, a powerful homage on the record. And so you knew that the respect level between a,

because they came up together. Touring on random tours in the late 2000s and early 2010s, working the mixtape circuit. There's history between those two. So when you hear that, and then eventually you hear Kendrix the Heart Part 5 in that last verse, which is dedicated to Nipsey. To my brother, to my kids, I'm in heaven.

To my mother, to my sis, I'm in heaven. To my father, to my wife, I'm serious. This is heaven. To my friends, make sure you count them blessings. To my fans, make sure you make them investments. Hearing that's The killer that spared up my demise, I forgive you, just know your soul's in question.

Hearing that verse and then going back and listen to dedication, man, it just gives me goosebumps to hear that, man. And one of my favorite things about this song is, you know, Nipsey's first verse on this song is incredible. Yeah. It's the remedy to separation to a park of my generation. Blue pill in the fucking matrix, Red rose in the great pavement, young black nigger trapped and he can't change it. No, he's a genius, he just can't claim it.

But then you hit Kendrick's verse. He's like, damn, he ripped it. I spent my whole life staring at the stage, playing Sega, Daddy smoking shir. Mama playing spades, catch your papers. Grandma said I get some Jordan for my grades. That's my baby. When she died, my heart broke her under waves.

You know, rap is always competitive, even if you love the people that you're rapping with, which Nipsey and Kendrick obviously do. But that, man, since we're talking about that song dedication, man, That third verse, he was like, this ain't entertainment. It's for niggas on the slave shit. Songs just as spirituals.

I swam against them waves with. Ended up on shore today amazement. Now, I hope the example I says, not contagious. Ended up on shore today amazement. Now, I hope the example I set's not contagious. Man, like, he really, like, he got in his lyrical bag on that. But again, that verse is the epitome of, of who,

he was and what he represented to a lot of people. It was like, look, I'm trying to show you this example. I'm trying to tell you how I operate. You get the sense that Nipsey Hustle saved some of his most complex lyricism for this track to kind of step toe to toe with Kendrick. Yeah. And I agree it's really powerful. Later in this track, there's this line that always strikes me where he says royalties, publishing,

plus I own masters, I'll be damned if I slave for some white crackers. Yeah. And that's a powerful indictment of the music industry, and that's been a part of the entire history of the American popular music market. It's a moment where you see that all this is connected in his mind. Financial independence, ownership. It's not just about his own success. It's about writing some of these historical wrongs and getting what's yours. So Nipsey is from the Crenshaw district in L.A. And when you think about the racial history of that area and just the disinvestment in

communities and investment elsewhere in different neighborhoods in L.A., like, that line hits different because he's always understood what disinvestment looks like. He's always understood what manipulation has looked like. And he saw that firsthand in the music business. So it wasn't really all that surprising to him, but he understood how he's been fighting against this for the entirety of his life. And what he's saying was like, yo, I own everything that I rap about. Every bar, every syllable that I put on record, this is mine. It's not anybody else. else's. And when you think about groups like the Black Panthers, they were preaching self-sufficiency. You think about somebody like Malcolm X. He was preaching self-sufficiency. And he spoke about how

Malcolm X really influenced his life and, you know, his music and how he moved in and out of different rooms. This was him in a way paying homage to those teachings. And he's putting it on record, basically saying, you know, I'm going to pay it forward. This is what I learned. This is what I learned over the course of my life. And this is how I learn how we can be better. We can't let anybody else own what we create. And that lesson and him trying to teach people and putting that in his music, it's a powerful example of, I want us to be better. And here's how we can be better. Just listen to what I'm saying. So yeah, that line on that third, again, that third verse was just, he didn't waste the single syllable on that verse right there, man.

we've only listened to four songs from this 16 track album. It's over an hour of music. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to go through a track by track, but hopefully this will wet people's appetite to go listen to more of this album, or if you're already a fan, to go back and sort of treasure some of it. But before we end this conversation, I did want to ask you if there is another standout moment on this album that really signifies for you the legacy of this release from Nipsey Hustle. The song, Real Big. If you go back and listen to The Crenshaw mixtape, there's a song on this. The Crenshaw in Slauson is basically his life story.

It's a 12-minute record where he's just talking about his life. And I feel like real big is the updated version of Crenshaw and Slosson. It's just like, if Victory lap is important because of the title and what it represents, real big is basically him looking at his life and saying like, yo, I survived all of this. I grew into a man that I can be proud of. I grew into a man that my kids can be proud to call me a father for, that my friends can be proud to call me a friend, that Lauren can be proud to call me a partner for the rest of her life. He was very proud of what he had accomplished.

It wasn't cocky or boastful or arrogant. It was just like, I'm very happy of what I've done. And understanding how his life played out a year later, I can't listen to real big and not get chills. Because in a way, it's Nipsey given his own eulogy. Can't even see the stars, but we still wish. I listened to that song earlier today, man. And I got goosebumps.

You can't see it right now, but I got goosebumps on my mom. arms just thinking about it because this dude, he deserved to grow older. He deserved to grow into an even better version of himself than what we saw in the 33 years that he was gifted. And so when I listen to Real Big, it's a beautiful song, but man, it is, I get really, really sad when I listen to that song because there was so much more he was supposed to do. Justin, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me on and thank you for letting me talk about one of the most important artists of my lifetime and, you know, one of the most important albums of my lifetime. This was, I needed this more than I realized.

So thank you. Absolutely. You can check out more of Justin's work at his website, Justin Tinsley.com. And I highly recommend his book, it was all a dream, Biggie and the world that made him available anywhere you get literature. On Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz. We're edited by Art Chung. Brandon McFarland mixes and engineers the show. Iris Gottlieb does illustrations and Abby bars in charge of community management.

You can find more episodes of Switched on Pop anywhere you get podcasts or website, Switched On Pop.com. You can hit us up and tell us about your favorite nipsy hustle tracks at Switched on Instagram and Twitter. We'll be back next Tuesday with a brand new episode. Until then, all the remaining. for me to say. Thanks for listening.