On March 31, 2019, Ermias Asghedom, the rapper and entrepreneur best known as Nipsey Hussle, was shot and killed in the parking lot outside his Marathon Clothing store in South Los Angeles. He was 33. Less than two weeks later, director, writer, and producer John Singleton shared a tweet from XXL Magazine showing a video of Hussle’s mother, Angelique Smith, urging his supporters not to mourn his death, because “his energy is everywhere.” “Wise words,” Singleton wrote. “Take heed!” Singleton suffered a stroke one week later and was taken off life support on April 28. He was 51.

The untimely deaths of two iconic figures with global influence within one month of each other amounted to a monumental loss. But the devastating one-two punch of their deaths isn’t the tie that binds Hussle and Singleton together. It isn’t that services for both were held at Angelus Funeral Home on Crenshaw Boulevard in South L.A., or that both were laid to rest at Forest Lawn–Hollywood Hills cemetery. It’s not that Hussle’s partner, actress Lauren London, was originally cast (“handpicked by John Singleton,” a proud Hussle informed GQ in a 2019 profile of the couple that ran shortly before his death) and filmed the pilot episode for Snowfall, the FX series chronicling crack’s origins in South L.A. that Singleton helped create. It isn’t that Singleton directed a 2017 episode of Billions titled “Victory Lap,” the same title as Hussle’s acclaimed, long-awaited 2018 debut studio album. And it’s not that Hussle and Singleton both hail from South L.A. These connections are mostly surface-level—ironic, in some instances—and purely observational. Their true connection is in who and what they represented, as well as why.

[Read Julian Kimble's piece examining the relationship between late South Los Angeles icons John Singleton and Nipsey Hussle.]