Nipsey Hussle Quotes

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

2. “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.”

3. “Not one person can make or break what I'm doing, except me or God.”

4. “I went through every emotion with tryna pursue 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.”

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

6. “I'm at peace with what I'm doing, I feel good with what I wake up doing and about my lifestyle.”

7. “Premature certainty is the enemy of the truth.”

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

9. “I don't ever make moves under pressure.”

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

11. “'Victory Lap,' even the title. It's the accumulation of trial and error; that's what I represent; trial and error.”

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

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

14. “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.”

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

16. “I always had faith in my creative capacity.”

17. “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.”

18. “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.”

19. “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.”

20. “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.”

21. “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.”

22. “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.”

23. “My life is real.”

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

25. “You're not going to scare me into being somebody I don't want to be.”

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

27. “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. You don't wait till you're five years in it; you create a exit strategy as you make the company.”

28. “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.”

29. “I'm not in it for fame. I've been famous in the streets already.”

30. “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.”

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

32. “One pillar to wealth is having residual income.”

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

34. “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.”

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

36. “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 the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.”

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

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

39. “I'm the type person, my safe place to be emotional is the booth.”

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

41. “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.”

42. “It was always a plan that we were going to have a retail side with what were 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.”

43. “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.”

44. “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.”

45. “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.”

46. “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.”

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

48. “Every artist wants something different out the game.”

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

50. “'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.”

51. “Anybody that doesn't like Cardi B a hater!”

52. “I like Cardi B!”

53. “My music is influenced by L.A. culture.”

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

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

56. “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.”

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

58. “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.”

59. “It's important to love in hip hop.”

60. “I really am a fan of Ye's music.”

61. “I think Ye is important to hip-hop.”

62. “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.”

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

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

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

66. “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.”

67. “I would say that the Nipsey Hussle 'Crenshaw' release was an example of All Money In creating an artificial scarcity campaign for the physical side of 'Crenshaw.'”

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

69. “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.”

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

71. “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.”

72. “We was able to become real successful in the mixtape space.”

73. “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 get taken from you quick.”

74. “Compton got such a legacy in hip-hop.”

75. “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?”

76. “I will never say something I don't agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!”

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

78. “Proud 2 Pay - that's something that distinguishes me, that's something that defines me, and we're going to keep that going.”

79. “I actually met The Game in my hood on Crenshaw and Slauson. I was outside on the block with 20 of my homies. I see the Range Rover, and we all walked up to his car. I handed him my CD.”

80. “Game's always been open arms with me.”

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

82. “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.”

83. “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.”

84. “In 2013, the week before I dropped 'Crenshaw,' 'Complex' wrote an article that said that Nipsey Hussle 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.”

85. “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.”

86. “I pay attention to politics and technology.”

87. “As much as I'm a black person from America, I'm a black person from Africa, too.”

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

89. “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.”

90. “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.”

91. “Look at Pusha-T. He makes a certain type of rap music. 'Daytona' is that on the highest level.”

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

93. “None of my peers avoided prison. None of 'em.”

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

95. “I respect Soulja Boy.”

96. “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.”

97. “I knew 'Crenshaw' had elevated me and distinguished me.”

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

99. “Cardi B put a lot of work in.”

100. “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.”