As the world continues to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of Nipsey Hussle, his beloved Los Angeles has already shown the extent to which they honor the late MC’s legacy. The Bloods and Crips declared a truce – the first time that has happened since 1992 — and L.A. City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson has officially declared The intersection of Crenshaw and Slauson to be renamed Ermias “Nipsey Hussle” Asghedon Square.
While Nipsey worked diligently to empower the South Central community that raised him, nearby in Watts rapper Stix (short for Wattstix) was also laying the groundwork for his own neighborhood to do the same. Now more than ever, he is showing and proving that the “Hussle” lives on.
Stix, who became a rapper under the influence of fellow Watts spitter Bad Lucc and went on to write for the likes of Iggy Azalea, teamed up with the L.A. Clippers and American Airlines last week to debut the new Clippers Community Courts at the shared campus of University Pathways public Service Academy High School and Charles Drew Middle School. The facility includes an updated gym and full-length basketball courts for students and the community.
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HipHopDX caught up with Stix at the April 3 NBA matchup between the Los Angeles Clippers and the Houston Rockets, where he was performing the team’s anthem “Clip City” at halftime. The rapper, who also wrote the LAFC anthem “My Home” recalled the mutual respect he and Nipsey had for each other’s community activism from day one.
“The first time I met Nipsey it was on the West Side of Los Angeles right around Slauson and Crenshaw. I have a close friend of mine named DK Toon and he introduced me to Nip, he was like ‘Yo, this is Nipsey, Nipsey this is Stix,’ and the first thing Nipsey said was ‘I heard of you Stix, you dope. I mess with you dawg. Keep it going,” Stix recalled.
“Nipsey was Community first. A lot of people know him as a rapper first but he was community first. He was all about ’It’s not what you have it’s what you do with it.’”
According to Stix, Nipsey was always about motivation when the two would link and that stood true all the way up until the last time they spoke.
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“Two weeks ago, he did a new hat release with the Paper Plane hat at The Marathon Store and my boy Prosper connected us again and he was like ‘Yo, Stix wanna holler at you’ and Nipsey was like ‘tell him come here’ and I was like ‘Yo keep doing everything you’re doing. I’m consistently inspired by you,’ and he was like ‘Yo, you doing your thing too, bro. ‘You doing what you doing with Watts and I’m doing what I’m doing with the Westside. Let’s start really bringing something in. Let’s see what we can do together,” Stix remembered. “Nipsey was always on ‘Hey man, you gotta invest your money. You gotta stack it up and double up and the only way you can do that is invest.’ He always had that mentality. Every time we had conversations we had it was all about the next thing he was doing and what he was planning on doing.”
Stix has already left a significant imprint on Watts but as 2019 nears the halfway point, he’s ready to push even harder to uplift the neighborhood that raised him and in doing so, continue the dream of a man that was doing the same thing.
Photo: Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images
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“The goal is to triple down on everything I’m doing now. Since 2016 I’ve been consistently giving back to the community. Giving less fortunate families groceries, backpack giveaways, things like that. So what he was doing and what I was doing were parallel which is why we were talking about working together. So all I have to do is continue to do what I was doing and it will honor Nipsey’s legacy.”
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