The Marathon Continues: Living in the Wake of Nipsey Hussle through Hip-Hop

Abstract

To live in the wake of slavery is to be vulnerable to violence known and unknown to ourselves and to always have those violent possibilities legally and scientifically justified. This research asks in what ways do Black people communicate care for each other while living in structures of racial oppression? I look to the Black performative arena, specifically hip-hop, to explore the ways Black hip-hop lyrics provides an avenue to care for lost Black lives in ways not possible by state-institutions. This research uses ethnographic content analysis of posthumous released songs about Nipsey Hussle to explore the ways he has been engaged in the wake of his death. I argue that in the wake of Nipsey’s passing hip-hop served as a form of wake-work praxis and has cared for Nipsey by keeping his voice alive, changing the discursive contours of contemporary hip-hop using his brand, and named him in ways that challenge how the state-institutions position Black subjectivity.