He doesn’t just bask in his moment, though, he challenges others to pursue the same goals, as on “Million While You Young,” which equates money with salvation (“I can tell you niggas how I came up/Similar to climbin’ out the grave, huh”). He has been chasing sustainability since he was a teenager, and now that he has it, he’s appreciative, relieved even. Self-taught and self-funded, Nipsey fought to escape the cycle of an existence measured only in summers-time spent as “the man” on the block or serving sentences in the pen. From digging up $100,000 his brother buried in his mother’s backyard for safekeeping only to discover half the money had molded to fighting off surprise challengers trying to steal jewelry from his entourage in Vegas, the album painstakingly documents the life of a reformed bruiser turned hood economist.
There are nuggets to take aways from his lectures, but the primary lesson to be learned here is just how ingrained “toughness” is in representations of manhood.Īs statements go, Victory Lap is more of a remembrance than a celebration. But Nipsey’s ambitions can be more problematic than they seem on the surface: He has used his enthusiasm can to fuel homophobia, denigrating many of the men he claims to want to empower.
Black capitalism is foremost on his mind these days he wants to build up his community and get others to follow, advocating for the grooming of more strong black men. His raps are still riddled with flashbacks to gangland survivalism, but he’s focused on his pivot to legitimacy, how he flipped Cripping on Crenshaw into a lucrative indie-rap career and then flipped that into an entrepreneurial enterprise.
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