When Nipsey Hussle Teamed Up With Fatburger

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Listen to Nipsey Hussle talk about why he partnered with Fatburger on special uniforms for its Crenshaw store back in 2014, and you’ll start to get a sense of why the rapper was not only beloved as an artist, but also respected as an entrepreneur in the South Los Angeles community where he grew up.

Sure, he’s backing a product, but only because he really loves it.

“We had an idea to co-brand the Crenshaw collection for The Marathon Clothing with the Fatburger Logo, and it was just something organic and natural, ” he told MTV in a video at the time. “The Fatburger logo, it’s like the Hollywood sign or it’s like something: You come to L.A. and you think Los Angeles. We didn’t want to get in the way of that.”

He gestured to his black T-shirt, the big yellow and red Fatburger logo tagged with, “Crenshaw,” in smaller blue script underneath.

Nipsey Hussle, born Ermias Joseph Asghedom, was gunned down Sunday afternoon, in front of the Marathon Clothing store he co-owned near that Fatburger. His death prompted an outpouring of grief. On Tuesday, a suspect was arrested.

[Read more about the latest in the case.]

Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a Los Angeles city councilman who worked with Nipsey Hussle on the Destination Crenshaw project, told me he first met him in 2013, at a rally against gun violence.

“It was 8 in the morning at Crenshaw High School,” Mr. Harris-Dawson said. “And here was this guy who I knew had a show the night before. He was there with his daughter.”

Mr. Harris-Dawson said that tireless work ethic would be his legacy.

“Energy never dies,” he said. “We might’ve lost the body, we might’ve lost the person, but we don’t lose the energy.”

The Fatburger chain was founded by Lovie Yancey in South L.A. in 1952, and has been referenced by rappers over the years — most famously in Ice Cube’s love letter to a perfect 24 hours, “It Was a Good Day.”

Mark Webster, who is now the Fatburger food truck franchisee, said he first approached Nipsey Hussle’s brother about working together when he realized the Crenshaw outpost and Marathon Clothing were going to be neighbors. “I thought there’s an opportunity here,” Mr. Webster said. “And I think there was a snowball effect thereafter.”

“Nipsey’s goal was to make that strip mall feel like you were on Fairfax,” she said. “He wanted people to understand the importance of this urban environment and not feel like, ‘I have to shop somewhere else.’”

He threw his full weight behind the branding, although the end result was subtle.

“He wanted to keep the elements of what Fatburger was, but added the small element,” Ms. Civil said. “So people still identified it, like, ‘Oh, snap, you got the Crenshaw on there.’”

It made the Fatburger and — by extension, Crenshaw — feel like a destination.

At the grand opening in May 2014, a line wound around the block, Mr. Webster said. Nipsey Hussle kissed babies and took selfies.

“This wasn’t a generic marketing play,” he said. “It was something that was very authentic and hit home.”

Mr. Webster said the Fatburger truck will always have Nipsey Hussle’s burger — with Swiss cheese, relish, fresh onions and mustard — on the menu.

• President Trump has called for closing the border. That, experts say, would paralyze the economy, causing food shortages and skyrocketing prices for goods — and not just avocados. [The New York Times]

• Senator Kamala Harris’s campaign raised $12 million in the first couple months of her run for president. That’s expected to send her into the top tier of candidates, financially speaking. [The New York Times]

• Sacramento teachers announced that they’ll strike on April 11. The walkout will affect 40,000 students in the Sacramento City Unified School District and comes after educators around the state have protested what they describe as disinvestment in public schools. [The Sacramento Bee]

• California women as a group make 89 percent of what men make. Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the state’s first partner, hopes to change that. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

• A contractor working on a condo tower in San Francisco’s financial district has sued its developer, claiming that the 58-story building, like the Millennium Tower, is leaning. [Commercial Observer]

• The reconstructed Oroville Dam spillway was used on Tuesday for the first time in more than two years. [Chico Enterprise-Record]

• Tax collections from Mammoth Lakes’s tourist economy have exceeded $3 million this year, a local record spurred by lots and lots of snow. [KQED]

• Cesar Chavez Day was this week. Here’s a look at the labor leader’s complex legacy. [NBC News]

Palate cleansers

• The Bay Area has no shortage of great views. Here’s a neat interactive to help you find out which vistas are the best — and contribute your own. [The San Francisco Chronicle]

• Soon after The Times’s film critic Manohla Dargis met Agnès Varda, she drove her to the Hollywood police station. That was a decade ago, and now Ms. Dargis wrote, it feels impossible that the iconic feminist auteur is dead. [The New York Times]

• Wild Rivers, the sprawling water park that played host to so many middle school dates and wedgies, is eyeing a return to Irvine, this time at the Great Park. It closed in 2011 after a 25-year run. [The Orange County Register]

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Jill Cowan grew up in Orange County, went to school at U.C. Berkeley and has reported all over the state, including the Bay Area, Bakersfield and Los Angeles — but she always wants to see more. Follow along here or on Twitter, @jillcowan.

California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U.C. Berkeley.