There’s times in life when we question if it’s worth doing what’s right when the results aren’t immediate. When there’s so many people winning, it’s natural to want to be on that path, too. But, at what cost? Some people get it how they live and it might result in compromises here or there that ultimately lead to consequences.
On the other side of the game, however, is the slow grind of pure work ethic and hustle. The sacrifice one makes to acquire their just due in the world the honest way is arduous and at times, discouraging.
Nipsey Hussle once faced this dilemma when he set out on a path of interjecting pure commitment and hard work towards his music career. Coming from a life of hustling in the streets, Nipsey was used to having the money, cars and street fame. But, he let all of that go to get on another trajectory.
In his early 20s, Nipsey decided to focus all of his energy toward creating music. However, as he embarked on this renewed sense of purpose, his confidence would be hit when the police did a surprise raid of his studio and confiscated all of his hard-earned equipment.
The South Central L.A. artist couldn’t grasp how something like that would happen right when he was trying to better his life in a honest way.
“I was really just in the house working,” Nipsey said in an interview. “They don’t know that. Nobody knows how pure you are but you. I was really pure at that time. I was doing nothing but music and I’m like damn, I was confused. Where does good karma pay off at — where does this sh– come back around at?”
What made it worse was that the “Grinding All My Life” rapper had made so many sacrifices to put himself in a position to elevate.
He continued, “I was really committed. My money got short, that didn’t stop me. How I was being viewed changed. People kind of acted like I fell off a little bit and I still stayed committed.”
Nipsey ended up with a charge after the raid for being around a registered shotgun while on probation. The incident really made him question whether what he was doing was the right thing.
“I remember, like, questioning everything. I don’t really have — no part of the game braced me for that. I don’t have no mantras that I remember hearing or nothing I grew up around. I didn’t have no answers for that one. It kind of discouraged me for a long time.”
After Nipsey was raided, he stopped doing music and went back to the streets in order to beat his charge. Despite the break in music, he still had a palpable music catalog, which would soon reach the hands of a record label executive at Epic Records. The label would offer Nipsey a deal solely based on his old music on Myspace. It was, indeed, a true confirmation from the universe of what path Nipsey should follow.
“I realized, like damn this is backpay,” he said. “I didn’t do no new work. This is all just reaping benefits from work I put in years ago. But, it took a while to go through the process of coming back. I was expecting like to be protected because I was working and for nothing bad to happen, but that ain’t how it came back around. It came back on its own time.”
The label deal was enough to get Nipsey away from a life of hustling and back into his purpose. As the old mantra says, “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Sometimes, that’s how it is. We work hard and don’t see the immediate return. Hard times happen to us, and we get desperate and lose sight of our purpose. Sometimes, it just seems plain easier to get it the way everyone else is getting it and to get it fast. But, there is that old preachy saying, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter it.”
If that’s too spiritual for you, rapper Christopher “Biggie” Wallace put it best in an excerpt on P. Diddy’s song “Pain” from his album No Way Out where he cautioned people to have a keen focus when pursuing your goals and fulfilling your purpose.
The track ends with Biggie reflecting, “Don’t let these motherf—— f— your sh– up dog. I don’t give a f— who it is, don’t let them f— your paper up, man. Please, Big, focus your mind man, do your albums, make them hot joints man f— these n—–… I’mma tell the same thing to you. Get your sh– done, watch your money and hopefully I pray for you, you’ll be the sh– and soon motherf—— start screaming your name out like they screaming all these other so-called hot n—–… Never take your eyes off that sh–, yo. Try to get everything you can out of these motherf—— yo, ain’t no guarantee they gonna love you n—–.”
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