128 Immortal Nipsey Hussle Quotes [Tribute to the Legend]

Do you want to learn more about the West Coast hip-hop artist whose underground mixtapes earned him respect from numerous rap veterans? The following selection of the most inspirational Nipsey Hussle quotes is a tribute to the rap artist who died so young. For even more, be sure not to miss our selection of 2Pac Shakur quotes.

Born in 1985, Ermias Joseph Asghedom was an emerging rapper, social activist, and entrepreneur and was commonly known by his rap name Nipsey Hu$$le. In the late 2000s, his mixtapes gained him a sizable following among hip-hop enthusiasts.

“Without a game plan and without a strong sense of faith in what you’re doing, it’s gonna be really hard to accomplish anything.”
Nipsey Hussle

Nipsey Hussle gained critical acclaim with his debut studio album Victory Lap, which was released in 2018. In 2019, he was nominated at the Grammy Awards in the category Best Rap Album.

Enjoy this collection of Nipsey Hussle quotes about success and life. Image credit: Neon Tommy.

From an early age on, Hussle was known for his entrepreneurial spirit. He shined shoes as a kid and sold mixtapes during his youth. Before rising to fame with a large audience, he founded a clothing store in 2017. The store was branded as a bridge between a classic brick and mortar clothing shop, technology, and the culture of the local neighborhood.

At the age of 14, Nipsey Hussle joined the local Crips gang known as the Rollin 60’s Neighborhood Crips. Later on in life, he became a community activist seeking to show young men like himself alternatives to becoming a gang member. His various social projects focused on preventing gang violence by helping the youth to get off the streets utilizing education.

128 Legendary Nipsey Hussle Quotes

Nipsey Hussle leaves a large legacy behind in South Los Angeles. After being tragically murdered outside of his Marathon clothing store in 2019, his various community projects continue to uplift the spirits of those living in the area. As a tribute to the skilled rapper and the kind-minded social activist, we have collected some of the most inspirational Nipsey Hussle quotes.

When reading through the collection of his thoughts, you can quickly see what a bright and creative man Nipsey Hussle was.

Here’s our selection of Nipsey Hussle quotes

1.

“Not one person can make or break what I’m doing, except me or God.”
Nipsey Hussle

2.

“Luck is just bein’ prepared at all times, so when the door opens you’re ready.”
Nipsey Hussle

3.

“You’re not going to scare me into being somebody I don’t want to be.”
Nipsey Hussle

4.

“Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take ten forward.”
Nipsey Hussle

5.

“You’ve got to have faith in what you’re doing and not take no for an answer.”
Nipsey Hussle

6.

“I’m at peace with what I’m doing, I feel good with what I wake up doing and about my lifestyle.”
Nipsey Hussle

7.

“I feel that luck is a product of hard work.”
Nipsey Hussle

8.

“Instead of trying to build a brick wall, lay a brick every day. Eventually, you’ll look up and you’ll have a brick wall.”
Nipsey Hussle

9.

“What good is dreaming if you can’t make your [stuff]come true? What good is a team when everyone depends on you?”
Nipsey Hussle

10.

“I’m tryin’ to live my life, so when it’s over I got no regrets.”
Nipsey Hussle

11.

“Most of the time I look inside and find the answers waitin’.”
Nipsey Hussle

12.

“Life is what you make it, I hope you make a movement.”
Nipsey Hussle

13.

“It sounds simple telling people to work hard and never quit, but to really execute and demonstrate those principles takes discipline and faith. Those are the two factors that I believe separate the good from the great, the successes from the failures.”
Nipsey Hussle

14.

“I knew I wanted to work for myself when I was about eleven.”
Nipsey Hussle

15.

“I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!”
Nipsey Hussle

16.

“I’m about seeing long-term, seeing a vision, understanding nothing really worthwhile happens overnight, and just sticking to your script long enough to make something real happen.”
Nipsey Hussle

17.

“‘Victory Lap,’ even the title. It’s the accumulation of trial and error; that’s what I represent; trial and error.”
Nipsey Hussle

18.

“I just believe in ownership… I believe in investing in yourself…Your foundation should be strong.”
Nipsey Hussle

19.

“If you’ve got a plan, it’s not just like a pipe dream. You have a step-by-step list of things to do to get to your goal.”
Nipsey Hussle

20.

“We’re not the cause, we’re the effect.”
Nipsey Hussle

Do you want more Nipsey Hussle quotes? Keep on reading…

21.

“Thought is powerful in all phases. Even in my career, even in my life, things end up exactly how I visualized them.”
Nipsey Hussle

22.

“Your parents are supposed to tell you to make decisions that are gonna help you and that’ll have a positive effect on your life and your well-being.”
Nipsey Hussle

23.

“My career as Nipsey Hussle is based on my life as Ermias Asghedom.”
Nipsey Hussle

24.

“I grew up in an environment where being polite was taken as a weakness. So I just fought everybody.”
Nipsey Hussle

25.

“Even as you make progress, you need the discipline to keep from backtracking and sabotaging the success as it’s happening.”
Nipsey Hussle

26.

“It can be as simple as it seems, if you never doubt yourself and learn from everything you see, no wishing on a star can turn your life into a dream.”
Nipsey Hussle

27.

“Once you found the real it’s hard to tolerate the plastic.”
Nipsey Hussle

28.

“Still somehow I understood that I could make the seed grow, and that one day that tree will bear fruit to feed my people.”
Nipsey Hussle

29.

“When it’s all over, all that counts is how the story’s told.”
Nipsey Hussle

30.

“I graduated from having haters now I see it all as fake love.”
Nipsey Hussle

31.

“I think everybody’s trying to get to a place in themselves where they conquer what they was afraid of; they achieve some of their life goals, kept their word about what they were trying to do.”
Nipsey Hussle

32.

“It’s not called quitting if you quit while you ahead. It’s about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out of the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.”
Nipsey Hussle

33.

“As an entrepreneur, as an investor, I’m trying to be as educated as I can to where the progression of technological capability is going and what it does to these different categories that, me as an artist and an influencer, I can get involved and bring value.”
Nipsey Hussle

34.

“Material things ain’t nothing. You feel me? At the end of the day, it’s who you is. You wasn’t born with it; you gon’ die without it.”
Nipsey Hussle

35.

“Being self-made means never making an excuse as to why you can’t take steps toward whatever your goal is.”
Nipsey Hussle

36.

“It’s important to love in hip hop.”
Nipsey Hussle

37.

“Most important thing is to get rid of doubt. If you got doubt in what you’re doing it’s not gonna work.”
Nipsey Hussle

38.

“I seen a lot of artists be hot for a minute, and then that’s it, and somebody else come in.”
Nipsey Hussle

39.

“I built a label at the same time I built a career.”
Nipsey Hussle

40.

“We don’t want to wait on someone to hire us and give us a check. We want to create our own opportunities.”
Nipsey Hussle

41.

“One pillar to wealth is having residual income.”
Nipsey Hussle

42.

“I say that in the most humble way: I always knew that I could perform with the best of ’em and I could deliver with the best of ’em.”
Nipsey Hussle

43.

“I’m not in it for fame. I’ve been famous in the streets already.”
Nipsey Hussle

44.

“I believe that economics is based on scarcity of markets. And it’s possible to monetize your art without compromising the integrity of it for commerce.”
Nipsey Hussle

45.

“A solution built by an artist serves the artist more than the solution the capitalist comes up with.”
Nipsey Hussle

46.

“I believe that we should own the fruits of our labor and the assets of our creations.”
Nipsey Hussle

47.

“I want to thank my Eritrean fans for feeling connected to me and for supporting me. I feel extremely grateful.”
Nipsey Hussle

48.

“None of my peers avoided prison. None of ’em.”
Nipsey Hussle

49.

“Every artist wants something different out the game.”
Nipsey Hussle

50.

“I went through every emotion with what I’m doing, you know what I mean? And I think what’s gon’ separate whoever’s gon go for something, that you ain’t gon’ quit.”
Nipsey Hussle

Nipsey Hussle quotes like this are straight to the point

51.

“‘Victory’ is like, you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It’s just about reaching a place in myself.”
Nipsey Hussle

52.

“When you talk about black entrepreneurship, you’re talking about addressing the foundation of what’s going on with our people when we don’t have any financial power. Our basic needs aren’t being met in a lot of cases, so there’s no way we’re going to be able to tap into our potential until we address those bottom-level base needs.”
Nipsey Hussle

53.

“Looking at 2014, I look back: we made more money off ‘Mailbox Money’ than we would have made off taking an advance from anybody. We made more money letting our fans buy the stuff directly from us than what any label could have offered us.”
Nipsey Hussle

54.

“Spoke some things into the universe and they appeared. I say it’s worth it, I won’t say it’s fair. Find your purpose or you wastin’ air.”
Nipsey Hussle

55.

“Say it’s all uncomfortable when you transition. But it’s all beautiful when you get rich in it.”
Nipsey Hussle

56.

“Keys to success, multiply what you approach with go to roll a dice, but the first time that you can go legit seize the opportunity, believe and take control of it then get on your marathon and grind it ’til it’s over with.”
Nipsey Hussle

57.

“Hoping as you walk across the sand you see my shoeprint.”
Nipsey Hussle

58.

“See it’s a couple [guys]every generation that wasn’t supposed to make it out but decode the Matrix. And when they get to speak, it’s like a coded language.”
Nipsey Hussle

59.

“I never wanted to alienate my brand for business… I always wanted to keep it authentic and keep as pure as I could.”
Nipsey Hussle

60.

“I just paid all of my dues. I disrespected the game, now my name’s all in the news.”
Nipsey Hussle

61.

“I always wanted to do things right and represent myself as somebody that took the art serious and someone that took the business serious also, so I had time to weigh the options and figure it out and do my best to create the situation that was ideal.”
Nipsey Hussle

62.

“I realized the power of hip-hop. I realized how influential this music and this culture are.”
Nipsey Hussle

63.

“From the beginning of my rap career, since I was seen and heard, I always had a store.”
Nipsey Hussle

64.

“I would say that the ‘Crenshaw’ release was an example of creating an artificial scarcity campaign for the physical side of ‘Crenshaw.’„
― Nipsey Hussle

65.

“Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.”
Nipsey Hussle

The following Nipsey Hussle quotes are pure gold

66.

“If you’re going to write about rap music and hip-hop, and you don’t love it, then we don’t need your opinion, and we revoke your opinion.”
Nipsey Hussle

67.

“L.A. hip-hop is so different; it’s so diverse. Out here, it’s, like, funk-inspired; it’s, like, ’70s-skating-rink-inspired at times. It’s Zapp-and-Roger-inspired; it’s house-party-era-inspired.”
Nipsey Hussle

68.

“We came up with TDE. As competitive as rap is, and as much as we’re trying to exceed the standards we set for ourselves, we take their wins as our wins, too.”
Nipsey Hussle

69.

“At the core, one of my original goals is to redefine what the streets expect.”
Nipsey Hussle

70.

“I really love the culture of hip-hop.”
Nipsey Hussle

71.

“I think you can give a pure artistic product if you understand how to build your own industry.”
Nipsey Hussle

72.

“I pay attention to politics and technology.”
Nipsey Hussle

73.

“I think that every artist – or anybody that’s in business – could benefit from a direct-to-consumer strategy, so I think that that applies to us as artists and content creators, too.”
Nipsey Hussle

74.

“We got turned down, we failed, had setbacks, had to start over a lot of times. But we kept going at it. In anybody’s case, that’s always the distinguishing factor.”
Nipsey Hussle

75.

“Snoop ain’t never cosigned me, but I know everybody is like, ‘That’s the next Snoop.’ Nah, I’m Nipsey, and I got to work to define myself.”
Nipsey Hussle

76.

“I always had faith in my creative capacity.”
Nipsey Hussle

77.

“A lot was accomplished in my mixtape career. But I still needed a few things: I needed to be recognized. I need to have radio. I need to have a real retail machine that can get us where we need to get that.”
Nipsey Hussle

78.

“My experience with power, you can maintain it, or you get it taken from you. You get you some newfound power and go crazy, and it gets taken from you quick.”
Nipsey Hussle

79.

“I identify myself as a hustler since I was a young kid.”
Nipsey Hussle

80.

“The reason children accept discipline from their parents is because they know their parents love them.”
Nipsey Hussle

81.

“I’m touring the world, not doing nothing against the law, getting money to feed my family. I got employees that have felonies, and they can’t get jobs. They work for me.”
Nipsey Hussle

82.

“I’m focusing on the music, but I still got a cold library of books that I’ve either read or I plan on getting to.”
Nipsey Hussle

83.

“When I first stopped going to high school, I was about 15, 16. It had to be, like, 2000, 2001.”
Nipsey Hussle

84.

“Proud 2 Pay – that’s something that distinguishes me, that’s something that defines me, and we’re going to keep that going.”
Nipsey Hussle

85.

“My music is influenced by L.A. culture.”
Nipsey Hussle

86.

“As I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family – my aunties, grandparents – is in Africa.”
Nipsey Hussle

87.

“I always wanted to operate at the highest altitude, just in terms of hip-hop and the music.”
Nipsey Hussle

88.

“In 2013, the week before I dropped ‘Crenshaw,’ ‘Complex’ wrote an article that said that is one of the top 25 underperforming artists. I was so offended that I responded with my own opinion about these journalists – their point of view is not validated in our culture.”
Nipsey Hussle

89.

“It was always a plan that we were going to have a retail side with what we’re doing musically, like an Apple store or Nike Town. I wanted something where you can come get everything – ‘Marathon’ or ‘All Money’ or ‘Crenshaw’ – and make it like an experience. Especially with what Crenshaw and Slauson meant to my story.”
Nipsey Hussle

90.

“I built a company at the same time I built a career.”
Nipsey Hussle

91.

“One of my mentors schooled me on branding before it was a cliche term in the game.”
Nipsey Hussle

92.

“I don’t ever make moves under pressure.”
Nipsey Hussle

93.

“If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together.”
Nipsey Hussle

94.

“Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so doomsday about getting to the check: ’cause it’s life or death for real.”
Nipsey Hussle

95.

“If I inspire you, pay for it, period.”
Nipsey Hussle

Here are even more inspirational Nipsey Hussle quotes for you

96.

“Get that dirt up off your shoulder, step yo game up.”
Nipsey Hussle

97.

“Out the garage is how you end up in charge. It’s how you end up in penthouses, end up in cars. It’s how you start off a curb server, end up a boss. It’s how you win the whole thing and lift up a cigar. With sweat drippin’ down your face ’cause the mission was hard.”
Nipsey Hussle

98.

“A necessary evil, ain’t that the term you use? Hundred thousand something soldiers went to serve for you so bury your people and let them burn for you over some oil ’cause the issue ain’t concerning you.”
Nipsey Hussle

99.

“Success to me is just being able to do what you love to do and support yourself all through.”
Nipsey Hussle

100.

“We act on how we think and never speak on how we feel.”
Nipsey Hussle

101.

“Come to my hood I’ll show you desperation”
Nipsey Hussle

102.

“Hopin’ what I’m doing truly make my mama proud ’cause for a very long time, I was the reason for her frowns.”
Nipsey Hussle

103.

“I hit the league straight out the streets with no talent scout.”
Nipsey Hussle

104.

“Doing music to pay bills is an uncomfortable situation. I never wanted to be in that situation.”
Nipsey Hussle

105.

“Any time a country transitioned to a fiat currency, they collapsed. That’s just world history; you don’t have to know about cryptocurrency to know that.”
Nipsey Hussle

106.

“On a mission, your worst enemy is idle time.”
Nipsey Hussle

107.

“When you say ‘follow me on Twitter,’ and you get 10 million people to follow you – you just leveraged your influence to add value to an app that you have no ownership in.”
Nipsey Hussle

108.

“I hope my story inspires everyone out there to keep hustling and chasing their dreams.”
Nipsey Hussle

109.

“My mom is American, so I was raised in her household in my formative years.”
Nipsey Hussle

110.

“I got an album concept called ‘Exit Strategy,’ that might be one of my last ones. It’s a term they use in business when you build companies. You create an exit strategy as you make a company.”
Nipsey Hussle

111.

“We represent a hustler. I think we represent inspiration. I think we represent, you know, staying down. I think we represent building yourself up from the bootstraps.”
Nipsey Hussle

112.

“You listen to Charlie Parker or John Coltrane before they found their voice, they sounded different. And when you listen to them after they found their voice on their instruments, they sound more confident and in control. Artists have that, too.”
Nipsey Hussle

113.

“I knew ‘Crenshaw’ had elevated me and distinguished me.”
Nipsey Hussle

114.

“People that’s in power – the central banks, these fiat currencies that are traded globally – they got influence over the messaging and the narrative in the media.”
Nipsey Hussle

115.

“To me, respect comes first.”
Nipsey Hussle

116.

“I try to sprinkle a little gems and jewels in the music that people could use in their own life.”
Nipsey Hussle

117.

“As an artist, as a brand, as a rapper, as a musician, you know you got a window and a lot of people, even an athlete; they don’t have no exit strategy. It’s just living in the false reality that it’s going to be like this forever.”
Nipsey Hussle

118.

“As much as I’m a black person from America, I’m a black person from Africa, too.”
Nipsey Hussle

119.

“I intend to inspire people with my story: motivate young people that grew up like myself, or even not like myself. Just, you know, go through the human experience.”
Nipsey Hussle

120.

“Before rap, my last name was my lifestyle, and when I visualize success it looked like right now.”
Nipsey Hussle Delphic

121.

“As is the case with most people in this game, I am driven by financial motives and creative motives; the question I had to answer is which motive I will give priority to?”
Nipsey Hussle

122.

“Partnering with Atlantic Records creates the opportunity to take what we’re doing to the next level, without compromising.”
Nipsey Hussle

123.

“My life is real.”
Nipsey Hussle

124.

“Successor greatness comes with a roller-coaster ride… anybody can apply the marathon concept to what they do.”
Nipsey Hussle

125.

“I get a more passionate delivery when I just go in the booth and let the music talk.”
Nipsey Hussle

126.

“If you don’t have a plan, it’s very hard to really have faith in what you’re doing ’cause soon as something pops up, it’s gonna look like the end-all.”
Nipsey Hussle

127.

“The artist part of me always wants to be appreciated. I read every review. But I never wanted to seek validation by awards or anything controlled by politics.”
Nipsey Hussle

128.

“I was never ignorant, as far as being experienced in classrooms and learning about different subjects and actually soaking it up, so I checked into college for a little bit. I took classes at a community college in West L.A. I took psychology, English, and philosophy.”
Nipsey Hussle

We hope you enjoyed this collection of Nipsey Hussle quotes.

After reading through the selection of his quotes, one can quickly see what an important man the world lost. Not only did he lift others up and encourage them to denounce violence but he also touched the lives of so many individuals by personally helping them.

Nipsey Hussle’s passing left behind a large gap – especially to those who got to know him as a social activist.

What’s your favorite quote from Nipsey Hussle?

Do you have a favorite quote of iconic mixtape rapper that you always enjoy reading? Let us know in the comment section below.

Stay victorious!