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..People always ask me how my music was influenced by West Coast rap. My answer catches people off guard. They think I’m ’bout to talk about hooks and melodies. Nah. Beyond that, L.A. rap taught me what a complete artist was. Them dudes weren’t just rappers. They was autobiographers, with a full array of emotional subject matter. They was telling deep stories in their music. Stories about being human, about being a man. Stories about me. You know what I’m saying?

The records banged, too, don’t get it twisted. And Pac was the leader of that. We’d be at the basketball courts or wherever, bumping Makaveli, and what I heard wasn’t club bangers. I heard a man speaking to me. He was bigger than a musical category.

That’s a big reason I’m always coming back to Crenshaw, and why I’m doing this basketball court project. This project is just the beginning. It’s just one thing. But it’s a reflection of where my mind’s at and where my heart’s at. I understand my obligation — I got an obligation to my community first, my family first, to hoods like L.A. all around the country who live for the culture. That’s part of the game, the way I see it. I have a duty to justify the seat that I’m sitting in. Nobody has any success on his own.

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Is it on your mind? Is it what you love? Is it worth your time?
Did you wait too long? Did the window close and it pass you by?
Is it all you got? If it all fall down would it break your heart?
When you leave its hurtful,when you in that dirt and you make your mark
Did you put your all in it? Did you reach your goal? Did it come with problems?
Did you start on Slauson? Did you make your way? Was it so exhausting?
Wasn't it so obvious? Celebrate your wins can't take your losses
Wasn't raised by bosses keep rolling problems that's how we solve them
Was you out here hustling? Cause your pops was gone and your moms was struggling?
Don't complain about nothing, cause you know they tried and they both put love in
Did you go off subject? Did the pain from your past make it hard to love shit?
Then you look forward but you couldn't find, then it turn to self-destruction
Then it cut deep, but you must see that in life that it ain't no justice
But it's about what you make it, then you make it and it ain't about nothing
No it ain't about nothing and it ain't about Slauson and it ain't about stunting
But I do it to shit on you niggas assumptions

...Cut across any of his work, there’s a decade’s worth online beyond Victory Lap and you’ll see a man haunted by the rigors of watching friends drop, not to mention catching too many close calls himself. Those who grew up in enclaves dodging bullets and fists understood what he was about, although he made it clear in the music: “Damn right, I like the life I built / I’m from west side, 60, I might got killed / Standin’ so tall, they think I might got stilts/ Legendary baller, like Mike, like Wilt” he riffs on the album that broke him to audiences far outside L.A., and is now his only major-label offering. Hussle made music for the street hustlers and those of us struggling to make ends meet and he became a local hero for using the fame and fortune he got from rapping and pouring it back into the neighborhood. It’s easy to root for a man who sold copies of his mixtapes out of the parking lot of a strip mall and turned right around and opened a shop in that same mall the second he could afford it. Hussle was inspirational, repeatedly stressing that success is a means to make things better for those less fortunate and those who will follow him. When the Times’ Sonaiya Kelley interviewed him last year, he was balancing promotion for Victory Lap with the opening of Vector 90, a co-working space and STEM center in the Crenshaw district that he envisioned as a conduit between underrepresented groups and corporate partners in Silicon Valley and beyond. It was impressive to see this kind of forward-thinking investing from a musician. Hussle didn’t just envision a vibrant South L.A., but he saw it as a hub for our nation’s brightest intellectual thinkers. “In our culture, there’s a narrative that says, follow the athletes, follow the entertainers” he told us. “And that’s cool but there should be something that says, follow Elon Musk, follow [Mark] Zuckerberg. I think that with me being influential as an artist and young and coming from the inner city, it makes sense for me to be one of the people that’s waving that flag.” Evidence of Hussle’s goodwill is sprinkled all over Crenshaw. Just ask around. He was known to buy shoes for students. He repaved basketball courts and freshened up playgrounds. He provided jobs and shelter for the homeless, and he paid for funerals for those who struggled to bury their loved ones. Hussle loved South L.A., so much so he made the streets of Crenshaw the backdrop for a glamorous photoshoot he recently did for GQ. Hussle sharp as a hood prince charming to his princess, actress Lauren London (their love reminding us of a young Jay-Z and Beyonce). And those were just the small deeds. He invested in Destination Crenshaw, a milelong stretch of rotating and permanent art installations; helped renovate World of Wheels, the old Mid-City roller rink that was one of the establishments responsible for birthing West Coast hip-hop. He was early into redeveloping a strip mall into a mixed-use property that would include low-income apartments and be anchored by his own Marathon Clothing shop. The property was just purchased last month as part of an initiative that would help locals reinvest in their communities across the country. Sunday, it became a crime scene, and then instantly a place of mourning. Hussle had big dreams for his ‘hood, and it’s not just tragic but unfair that he was cut down in the middle of revitalizing a community that raised him. By all accounts, Hussle was doing the right thing. If we remember anything about him, it should be that sense of aspiration.