Quotes from Nipsey Hussle

One pillar to wealth is having residual income.

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.

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.

I always had faith in my creative capacity.

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

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.

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.

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.

I don't ever make moves under pressure.

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.

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

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.

None of my peers avoided prison. None of 'em.

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

I knew 'Crenshaw' had elevated me and distinguished me.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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?