‘Victory Lap’: How Nipsey Hussle’s Debut Album Secured His Track Record

Blue Laces 2 revises Hussle’s somewhat prophetic Blue Laces, from 2010’s The Marathon mixtape, which referenced his gang of old, the Crips, and featured a guest spot from first-wave gangsta rapper Kokane. This time around, Hussle remains in reflecting frame of mind, employing an early Kanye West-style sped-up soul sample, though his life has progressed onwards and upwards (“City council meetin’, they got Hussle speakin’”). In the near-decade that had passed since The Marathon, he had also become a bona fide hitmaker, with the heavy and atmospherically creeping stomp of Victory Lap’s centrepiece, Hussle & Motivate, going gold in 2019, becoming one of his best-known tracks.

Releasing the pressure

The ticking trap of Status Symbol 3 releases the pressure, featuring a comedic turn from Compton’s prolific Buddy (“Almost forgot what I was doin’”), who picks up where his two previous collaborations with Hussle left off. Succa Proof then brings in veteran dancehall artist Konshens for a fire-and-brimstone feature (“Boy diss Nipsey Hussle/Exercise mi trigger finger muscle”).

The bombastic second part in another series, Keyz 2 The City 2 calls upon South Central singer Tee Flii to lend a hand on a song which makes a U-turn halfway through, for a whole different flavour (“My whole life is like a balance act”), before leading into the infectious, bumpin’ Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs hit Grinding All My Life (“Sacrificed, hustled, paid the price/Want a slice, got to roll the dice”).

The soulful Million While You Young features R&B master The-Dream, who declares his loyalty as Hussle reflects on the pressures of becoming successful (“Streets ain’t for everybody, get your grades up”), while the 70s soul feel of Loaded Bases pitches Hussle’s laidback rhymes against another noted singer, Atlanta’s sweet-toned Cee-Lo Green. The album’s nominal closer, the dreamy, uplifting Real Big, features Floetry’s Marsha Ambrosius, who offers her own support over more motivational chords (“If I could give you the stars, baby, I would”). However, significant unannounced bonus cuts sneak in, in the form of the laidback, trippy and nostalgic Double Up, which features Palestinian rapper Belly alongside Dom Kennedy, floating over its rusty beats; and the proudly brassy Right Hand 2 God.

The promo videos: Hundreds of millions of views from captivated fans

Half of Victory Lap was bolstered by promo videos. The title track’s clip features footage filmed at an idyllic holiday location, mixed with hometown hangouts. The videos for Rap Ni__as, Last Time That I Checc’d and Status Symbol 3 focus mainly on cars, while Grinding All My Life does what it says in the title. Hussle & Motivate, however, has Hussle holding up a security truck, in what plays like a try-out for a career in action films. Most notably of all, the epic video for Double Up has had hundreds of millions of views from fans captivated by its story of Nipsey and an alluring female former criminal acquaintance meeting again years later, under radically different circumstances.

The release and the legacy: Leaving fans with the medal, not the victor

Released on 16 February 2018, Victory Lap went platinum with ease, and scored Nipsey Hussle a Grammy nomination. But his success was cut tragically short: in 2019, having barely had time to sample his next-level fame, the rapper became yet another victim of gun violence in the US. After being shot repeatedly on the afternoon of Sunday, 10 March, outside his own shop in South Central, in an attack by another Crip, Hussle died aged 33, leaving two children fatherless. Tributes came from figures as prominent as Barack Obama, whose wife, Michelle, had named Hussle & Motivate one of her favourite songs. A little more Hussle material has crept out in the years since his death, but while Victory Lap may have won him the race, we have been left with the medal, not the much-missed victor.