Author: Jill Cowan / Source: New York Times
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Listen to Nipsey Hussle talk about why he partnered with Fatburger on special uniforms for its Crenshaw store back in 2014, and you’ll start to get a sense of why the rapper was not only beloved as an artist, but also respected as an entrepreneur in the South Los Angeles community where he grew up.
Sure, he’s backing a product, but only because he really loves it.
“We had an idea to co-brand the Crenshaw collection for The Marathon Clothing with the Fatburger Logo, and it was just something organic and natural, ” he told MTV in a video at the time. “The Fatburger logo, it’s like the Hollywood sign or it’s like something: You come to L.
A. and you think Los Angeles. We didn’t want to get in the way of that.”He gestured to his black T-shirt, the big yellow and red Fatburger logo tagged with, “Crenshaw,” in smaller blue script underneath.
Nipsey Hussle, born Ermias Joseph Asghedom, was gunned down Sunday afternoon, in front of the Marathon Clothing store he co-owned near that Fatburger. His death prompted an outpouring of grief. On Tuesday, a suspect was arrested.
[Read more about the latest in the case.]
Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a Los Angeles city councilman who worked with Nipsey Hussle on the Destination Crenshaw project, told me he first met him in 2013, at a rally against gun violence.
“It was 8 in the morning at Crenshaw High School,” Mr. Harris-Dawson said. “And here was this guy who I knew had a show the night before. He was there with his daughter.”
Mr. Harris-Dawson said that tireless work ethic would be his legacy.
“Energy never dies,” he said. “We might’ve lost the body, we might’ve lost the person, but we don’t lose the energy.”
The Fatburger chain was founded by Lovie Yancey in South L.A. in 1952, and has been referenced by rappers over the years — most famously in Ice Cube’s love letter to a perfect 24 hours, “It Was a Good Day.”
Mark Webster, who is now the Fatburger food truck franchisee, said he first approached Nipsey Hussle’s brother about working together when he realized the Crenshaw outpost and Marathon Clothing were going to be neighbors. “I thought there’s an opportunity here,” Mr. Webster said. “And I think there was a snowball effect thereafter.”
[Read about how the neighborhood mourned Nipsey Hussle.]
Karen Civil, the chief marketing officer of the Marathon Agency, was part of Nipsey Hussle’s team at the time. She told me, her voice breaking, that the partnership exemplified the…
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