When Nipsey Hussle (born Ermias Asghedom) passed, the world lost something special.
We lost our brother.
Our community lost a revolutionary thinker.
The world lost an innovator.
The murder of Nipsey shook the hip-hop world and community. His sudden and tragic passing by a senseless act of violence had a devastating impact on young Black men and women across the country, who respected his work in the community and as a prolific rapper. Committed to unapologetically celebrating Blackness and serving his community, Nipsey gave voice to issues often ignored in the mainstream. He also gave his time, money and eventually his life to make sure the people around him were better off.
A thoughtful entrepreneur and innovator, Nipsey inspired a generation of Black innovators in his community to use technology to solve problems in the community. As the founder and CEO of Vector90, a technology hub and hip-hop driven STEM initiative based in Crenshaw, Nipsey created space and opportunity for Black women and men to disrupt an exclusively white tech industry. Nipsey’s hustle and commitment to Black and brown-led innovation are admirable and we must push his work forward. We can do this by supporting and cultivating the necessary skills among our youth to make an impact in the tech industry.