As the city mourned the rapper, local gang members saw an opportunity to unite longstanding rivals. But some fear any truce will be short-lived

Days after Nipsey Hussle’s murder, his friend Shamond Bennett was unexpectedly feeling “on top of the world”.

Bennett, who is 39 and goes by the name Lil AD, was like an older brother to Hussle, and part of the same Los Angeles gang. He was suffering through intense grief when something unprecedented happened: South LA’s rival gangs came together and, for the first time in decades, talked to each other about stopping the violence.

At a memorial for the rapper, Bennett met, and hugged, members of a group that has feuded with his Crips gang set for 40 years.

“It was one of the best feelings of my whole life, it really was,” he recalled.

In the four weeks since Hussle’s death on 31 March, LA gang members and community organizers have fought for this moment to be a meaningful turning point in LA gun violence, discussing possible truces between neighborhood groups that have long been engaged in deadly conflict.

Some remain skeptical that things will fundamentally change. But many recognize that if anyone can transform the trajectory of the city’s history, it is Nipsey Hussle.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mourners in front of the Marathon Clothing store where Hussle was killed. Photograph: Alex Welsh

A ‘prophet’ who transformed South LA

Nipsey Hussle, born Ermias Asghedom, left his mark on south LA.

“This young man did more in 33 years than most have done in a lifetime,” said Minister Tony Muhammad, a Nation of Islam leader who knew the rapper.

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Bennett echoed Muhammad: “Nip was [making] a lot of people realize you can do something more with yourself. I really feel like he was like a prophet.”

Around the neighborhood, Hussle was a fixture – a business leader and father of two who found huge success in the music industry and invested directly into the Crenshaw district that raised him. In a 2006 interview, at age 21, Hussle talked about wanting to build “some real estate … a real asset to take care of my peoples”.

That dream became a reality with his Marathon Clothing store, burger joint and fish market, his work to help create South LA’s first co-working space, and many other projects.

“He didn’t take his money and run,” said Lanaisha Edwards, a South LA organizer. “He stayed in the community.”

Gangs were part and parcel of that community.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lanaisha Edwards, a gang interventionist, said of Hussle: ‘He didn’t take the money and run.’ Photograph: Alex Welsh/The Guardian

LA has hundreds of gangs, which law enforcement and some in the media often characterize in simplistic terms – as organized groups of violent criminals threatening public safety.

The reality is much more complicated. Gang ties are based on neighborhood boundaries and families, and groups have long histories and cultures that extend far beyond an underground economy and violent activity.

“We’re all gang members, because we were born into this. We grew up in it,” said Edwards, who works as a gang interventionist and lost two brothers to gang violence, while taking the Guardian on a drive through South LA. “You have been in at least 30 different gangs and different communities as we roll through these streets,” she noted, ticking off the names of various sets at a rapid pace.

Hussle talked openly about coming from the Rollin’ 60s, a well-known Crips group.

His alleged killer, Eric Holder, was reportedly also affiliated with the Rollin’ 60s. Holder, 29, is accused of showing up at Hussle’s store and shooting him multiple times over a personal dispute.

Holder’s ties to the group exacerbated the community’s feeling of senseless loss.

“Being killed like that, it’s a common thing for people that come from where we come from,” said LaTanya Ward, a 38-year-old from a neighborhood known as the Jungle. “To be killed by they own homies, or just violently like that, and for no reason, we used to it.”

But Ward wanted this time to be different.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shamond Bennett, left, and LaTanya Ward, right. ‘Being killed like that, it’s a common thing for people that come from where we come from,’ Ward said. Photograph: Alex Welsh/The Guardian

A ‘historic’ meeting of rivals

Ward is proud to say she comes from a Bloods gang called Black P Stones and said she had been focusing on activism and organizing in recent years.

The Bloods and the Crips are rivals, but Ward, who also goes by the name Big Fuck Off, had been friendly with both Hussle and Bennett over the years.

It’s common for rival gang affiliates to go to school together and have mutual friends, Ward said. “We all share the same struggles … the systemic racism, all of that shit that we victims to.” Even people who considered the Rollin’ 60s an opponent in gang warfare still had a fondness for Hussle, Ward continued. “Nipsey is from Los Angeles … he one of our own, even if he is, amongst us, one of our enemies.”

With so many people mourning Hussle, Ward wanted to bring groups together. She called Bennett, Hussle’s friend. “It’s the perfect time,” she told him.

Ward and Bennett made more calls, and just four days after Hussle’s death, a group of about 15 people representing a wide range of feuding gangs sat down to talk.

The group called another meeting for the following day, and this time more than 100 people attended, representing over 30 gangs.

Then, a man associated with the Rollin’ 60s posted an invitation on Instagram for anyone involved with LA street gangs to attend that week’s vigil for Hussle at Crenshaw and Slauson, the site of the Marathon store.

That meant some rival gang members who would never have set foot there had “safe passage” to pay their respects. It worked.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘There’s an obligation to make sure his death is not in vain,’ a local entrepreneur said of Hussle. Photograph: Alex Welsh/The Guardian

Hundreds showed up, and members of 8 Trey Gangster Crips, a group that has been at war with the Rollin’ 60s for decades, embraced Hussle’s group and friends.

“They welcomed me with open arms,” said Bennett. “That first handshake, and then them hugs, it’s like it’s real now. It was amazing. It was beautiful.”

“This is history, because they got to stand on the same square, not incarcerated, but on the streets, coming together,” added Edward Scott, a former gang member.

Minister Muhammad, who was at the vigil and communicating with members of different gangs, said he had always thought of the Rollin’ 60s and 8 Trey feud as the most “unsolvable” gang rivalry in LA: “The community was just crying, because we had never seen it before.”

It was an extraordinary moment: the people who would be shooters and victims were all in one place, said Skipp Townsend, a 55-year-old former Bloods member who now works in gang intervention and opened the doors to a community space for Ward, Bennett and the others to meet.

“There are so many people who want peace, but they did not want to be the first to say it,” Townsend said. “So many people were living in fear.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Skipp Townsend works in gang intervention. ‘So many people were living in fear,’ he said. Photograph: Alex Welsh/The Guardian

‘Forty years of conflict don’t end overnight’

It’s too early to say if lives have been saved as a result of the meetings spurred by Hussle’s death. Summer is the deadliest season for gang violence, and activists said the coming months would be a major test.

Some fear the moment won’t last.

Ask anyone in South LA about the possibility of a long-term peace, and they will bring up 1992. Riots erupted across the city over the acquittal of the LA police officers who savagely beat Rodney King – and in response, rival gangs declared a ceasefire. The rate of murders subsequently declined.

But the violence eventually returned and surged, and some worry this time will be no different.

“Forty years of conflict just don’t end overnight,” said Darrell Gray, a longtime intervention worker, adding that there had been continued violence in recent weeks.

Bernard Cooper, a former 8 Trey member who met the Guardian at a community center on a recent afternoon, noted that someone had been killed right down the street the evening prior: “The movement has been threatened,” he worried.

Many activists argue that community support and pressure from loved ones will be key for the peace to hold. “If this ceasefire is to continue and to really be impactful, we have to figure out what youth and family members of these guys who have real influence in their community is sick of the bullshit,” said Edwards.

Others said they were avoiding loaded terms like “peace treaty” that have failed in the past and coming up with their own language to define a truce, starting with a “non-aggression agreement” to stop the violence. And Ward insisted it was crucial to keep the meetings exclusive to gang members and not involve law enforcement: “We not fucking with the police … It’s a people’s movement.”

‘His death cannot be in vain’

Many wondered what Hussle would have personally accomplished had his life not been cut short.

The rapper had hopes to adopt a local school and transform it and was in the process of entirely redeveloping the strip mall where he was killed, said Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a councilman in South LA.

Since his death, several people in the neighborhood have come forward eager to mirror Hussle’s method of fighting gentrification and open their own businesses, the councilman said. “I think this is a ‘before this’ and ‘after this’ moment”, he added.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Nipsey Hussle mural across from the Marathon Clothing store. Photograph: Alex Welsh/The Guardian

“There’s an internal conviction to do something, because he was so special,” agreed Kika Keith, a local cannabis entrepreneur who had planned to soon meet with Hussle about a possible collaboration. “There’s an obligation to make sure his death is not in vain.”

Ward is hopeful about where the talks are headed. “Right now, we just working on community agreements, how we gonna govern our own neighborhoods,” she said. “I feel very fucking optimistic.”

For Bennett, it’s one step at a time. Just being able to safely walk on the streets of opposing groups means the world to him, he said. After a recent meeting, a rival gang walked him to his car. “They made me feel like I’m at home,” he recalled.

But he wishes Hussle were around to see it. It is so easy for him to imagine the exact words Hussle would be saying to him if he were still alive: “He’d say, ‘I’m rolling with you. I’m proud of you. Whatever you need, I got your back.’”