I said, 'Listen to the energy of this record. So we went back to the studio and I hit Mixed by Ali, like, 'Bro we gotta mix it again, it's not loud enough.' He's like, 'No, it's gonna get louder in mastering.' 'No, bro.' And I played 'Natural Born Killaz' for everybody - the producers, the keyboard players. You right!' We had it mixed and mastered, but the Dre and Ice Cube record was noticeably louder. It didn't sound like this sonically it's not ready, bro.' And I'm like, 'Damn. He pressed play on 'Natural Born Killaz,' like, 'I hear what you're trying to do. So I had my producer and we went to Puff's mansion he had just bought in L.A. And he said, 'It don't sound like that though, bro.' And this was the version before the one we put out. I originally asked him to get on 'Rap N*****.' He heard the record and he was like, 'Yeah, 'Rap N*****' is strong Hussle, but listen to this.' And he pulled up 'Natural Born Killaz' with Ice Cube and Dre. I'll produce the whole album.' I'm like, 'Alright I'm a hold you to that!' When it was album time, I told him, 'Look, I got my album done, I'm coming to play these records for you.' He was like, 'Nah Nip! I ain't never done a West Coast album, that'd be crazy. I told him, 'I would love to get in the studio with you and build on that level.' To me, Bad Boy was the Motown for rap - which is being able to engineer the songwriters, the producers, the stars - so I have the ultimate respect for Puff as a producer. Puff was blessed to have an artist as great as Biggie and Biggie was blessed to have a producer as great as Puff. Let's build.' We had a convo about Life After Death. I know you've got a million people that try to get energy from you and your resources up out you.' I was just like, 'You know bro, I ain't one of them dudes that be trying to get up under Diddy's hand and play niggas close and all of that. But one time Puff was like, 'Tell Nip to come through, man Nip don't f*** with me or what?' So I made sure that I went. I'd be like, I ain't trying to wiggle into no relationships. Her and Cassie were real close any time Cassie would have a birthday party or they'd be hanging out, Lauren would invite me. Me and Diddy had already been in contact with each other by being in the music industry and all of that, but my son's mom did an early Sean John ad and she had a good relationship with him since then. It had to be a calling on my life and I started to see that. It's gotta be evidence of a divine presence, because it wasn't that I'm just the smartest dude or just wiggled my way through. That's what I was talking about in that line. Then to be in the position I find myself in as an artist and entrepreneur who has respect around the world - that's legendary. So to make it out mentally stable and not in prison and not on drugs, that's a win. Everybody got bullet wounds and felonies and strikes. in my section of the Crenshaw District, in the Rollin 60s, none of my peers survived. If you check the stats - the murder rates and incarceration rates in the years I was a teenager in L.A. 'I'm a urban legend / South Central in a certain section / Can't explain how I curbed detectives, guess it's / Evidence of a divine presence.' That's certainly no defense, but perhaps some missing context. Nipsey's hustle speaks to those who often develop a paranoid sense of hypermasculinity in order to survive environments where their own identity is a primary target.

He declined to speak on it directly, saying he preferred to let the music speak for itself. When I talked to him for the exclusive breakdown of his album with NPR Music, Nipsey was still feeling the heat from social media after an Instagram post of him praising a positive image of young black boys was widely condemned for simultaneously expressing homophobic sentiments. A long-time member of L.A.'s notorious Rollin' 60s Crips, Nipsey's gangland snarl remains as visceral as ever, but the former street entrepreneur hustles legally now, a reformed hard-head turned inspiration to the hood. And on Victory Lap, the first release from his multi-album deal with Atlantic Records, he opens the vault to reveal of fresh stockpile of thug motivation. But it takes more than an innate business ethic to make great music.

And it paid in dividends: $100,000 in the first 24 hours, to be exact - even Jay-Z respected his hustle enough to order 100 copies. This is same artist, after all, who had the audacity to price physical copies of his 2013 mixtape Crenshaw at $100 a pop, when a still woefully devalued music industry had rappers en masse giving away their music for free. A decade in the waiting, Nipsey Hussle's Victory Lap is more than an anticipated major-label debut - it's a testament to the independent grind he employed to cultivate a dedicated fanbase.

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