Slain rapper Nipsey Hussle’s life was cut short by a gunman just one day before the Grammy-nominated artist was supposed to meet with the LAPD to advise them on curbing street violence, according to reports.
The 33-year-old was supposed to meet with the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners and the city’s police chief “to talk about ways he could help stop gang violence and help us help kids,” commission president Steve Soboroff told the Washington Post.
The Los Angeles native, born Ermias Asghedom, had been open about his previous membership in the Rollin 60s street gang, which he once described as “one of the biggest Crip gangs of our generation.”
“I grew up in gang culture,” Hussle once told the Los Angeles Times. “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.”
But he had used his celebrity to give back to the South LA streets where he grew up, including by opening a co-working space with science, technology, engineering and math education for youngsters.
“Growing up as a kid, I was looking for somebody — not to give me anything — but somebody that cared,” he once told the Los Angeles Times. “Someone that was creating the potential for change and that had an agenda outside of their own self-interests.”
Hussle was fatally shot outside his LA clothing store Sunday afternoon. Two other people were hit; one has since died and the other is expected to survive. The gunman is still at large.