A version of this story was published by DJBooth.net on April 10, 2019.

I stopped working out after about 15 minutes. It was crowded in the gym and my mind was elsewhere. I got my bag out of the locker room and got into my car to drive from Santa Monica to The Marathon Store.

There was a jam on the 405 interchange so I kept going east on the 10 and got off at Crenshaw. Feeling good about driving down the Boulevard on a sunny Saturday morning, I played Victory Lap from the top.

It was just before noon when I met the traffic approaching Slauson Avenue. I turned right on 57th and made my way up the skinny hill made even skinnier by two rows of parked cars. I turned right on Chesley and parked. On the sidewalk I was greeted by a cheerful homeless man. There was a cool and geographically unusual ocean breeze rolling through the neighborhood.

I wasn’t even to Slauson before I saw the first tribute, R.I.P. NIPSEY spray painted in blue on a stone wall across the street from an auto shop. The traffic was backed up for five or six blocks from the plaza on the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Slauson Avenue where Nipsey Hussle was murdered six days earlier.

There were people gathering across the street from the Marathon Store in small groups. For the amount of cars and people in the area it was quiet. Victory Lap played from speakers inside the memorial and every 30 seconds or so a car would roll slowly by with Nipsey’s voice rapping from open windows. The harmony of the entire spectacle was surreal and pleasing. Time was standing still.

The entrances to the mall were blocked by cops who were acting calm if not flat out tired. The memorial had been the biggest public attraction in Los Angeles for a week. 30 yards from where I was standing more than a dozen LAPD motorcycles were parked at the Louisiana Famous Fried Chicken. Officers were collapsed in the patio furniture in the shade.

There was a small number of people permitted to view the memorial at this time. Inside, visitors were ushered and assisted by men in matching brown suits. The black All Money In armored truck was parked there. The blue balloons and decorations were innumerous and only partially in view from where I was standing. It was an outpouring.

“All it takes is one asshole to cause all this pain,” an older man said as he walked up and stood beside me for a moment. He was shaking his head, I told him it was sick. He looked me in my eye and grunted an agreement before continuing down the sidewalk.

People openly smoked weed in front of the uninterested officers who would now and again remind people to be careful as they waded into the Slauson traffic to take better pictures and videos of the scene. I took a few drags from a vaporizer that I keep on my keychain. I wished I had a blunt.

I couldn’t figure out where people were gaining entrance to the memorial so I kept walking towards Crenshaw and crossed the street towards the Fat Burger. There was a line of about 100 people wrapping around the block towards the alley that was supervised by more men in suits. Asalamalakum, they greeted us. One of them communicated on a walkie talkie. I kept an eye on him to get a sense of how long we were going to wait under the 12 o’clock sun. A while.

We could no longer hear the music from the parking lot so some people played Nipsey’s discography from their phones. Conversations on the sidewalk were hushed and periodic. The occasional burst of laughter would ring along the line that was slowly growing.

The Crenshaw Rams of the Snoop Youth Football League arrived in droves, kids proudly in uniform, adults sporting their children’s names and numbers on hooded sweatshirts. They walked through the Fat Burger parking lot to the front of the line where they were let in through the sliding back gate. Other people who were granted immediate access carried bottled water, takeout food, and other supplies. Nobody in line complained.

I thought about Nipsey’s Proud 2 Pay concept and his extraordinary ability to get people to wait patiently in line. This was just as true in death as it was throughout his campaign for The Marathon. I smiled to myself. I noticed my lower back was beginning to ache.

I moved to LA in 2011. In 2013, I was interning for Gavin “Mizzle” McNeill at the YOUth Fairfax Store & Gallery, and for the locally grown brand Just Be Cool (JBC. Global). Mizzle’s prior relationship with Nipsey led him to co-host the release party of the famous $100 Crenshaw mixtape.

I got to the event an hour early to help set up. There were already almost one hundred people outside, and when I got inside I saw Nip hanging out in the hallway leading back to the office. I shook his hand, congratulated him on his historic release, and welcomed him to the store. He was calm, gracious, and smooth. I walked away immediately wondering why I had welcomed this man to his own event. Never mind, I thought, I didn’t have time to be embarrassed for myself.

When the doors opened to let the public into the event, I tip toed sideways through the crowd of our friends, Fairfax familiars, media members, and Nipsey’s large entourage. I positioned myself along the wall next to where he would be taking pictures and signing CDs. We started playing the tape.

“U See Us” is track number two on the Crenshaw tape. Track one is a short monologue from Boyz n the Hood. When the song began to fade out Nipsey leaned over to tell Mizzle’s assistant Maya to run it back. One more time. And one more time after that. He was almost embarrassed by the fifth time he motioned for her to replay it but I’ll be damned if that wasn’t the correct call. He set the tone with that song. He was beaming. His big moment had finally arrived.

I thought about this as I stood in line. Normally I fucking hate lines. Mental weakness. I always have to devise an exit strategy and a perfect reason to flee any earthly line, no matter what I stand to lose. If there was a line to my own mother’s funeral, I would think about how to apologize to her on the other side, for no line is worth the momentary assault on my anxious mind.

But this day was different. I was calm, like Nipsey. I thought about the actual block I was standing on. Someplace I wouldn’t otherwise stand for hours at a time, and more than likely never will again. This is the block where Nipsey used to grind day and night because his life depended on it. This is the block that he would eventually buy, and continue to grind on, because his life and the lives of so many others depended on it. This is the block where he lost his life.

I thought about my aching back and how unusual it was for me to not to be freaking out, and how the least I could fucking do for one of the most beloved artists of a generation was to finish the drill and stay in line no matter how long it took. I owed it to him, personally.

There were so many of us. Tight groups of friends who wore Dodgers hats, girlfriends, boyfriends, wanderers like myself, entire families, strollers, jerseys customized with the number 60. All here to pay tribute, to find out how to say goodbye, to begin to understand all the ways our lives were enriched and inspired by Ermias Asghedom.

You hear, and read, and scroll through testimonies about how Nipsey’s death is uniting the entire city and softening violence from decades-old conflicts. We’re in the heart of the Rollin 60s. Rounding the corner onto 58th Place near the entrance of the memorial, I could now testify. You can see the truce. The notes from rival sets scrawled onto the concrete. There was a eulogy in some shape or form everywhere you turned. It was remarkable.

The sun was beating down on all of us. I would later find a fabulous sunburn on my exposed forehead and nose. Free bottled water, Brisk lemon iced tea, and Hot n Ready pizzas were passed out. Volunteers kept them coming on a string. Iced tea for me.

After almost two hours I was invited to enter with 50 others. I walked past the first set of murals, past the graffiti-scribed names of other loved ones lost. I braced myself, I turned the corner, and there everything was: thousands upon thousands of mementos of The Marathon.

The armored truck. The giant wreath. The candles. The blue roses. The blue bandanas. The blue teddy bears. The photographs. The personal notes. The drawings. The Eritrean flag. The elderly and the young and the familiar and the strange all paying silent respects to the man they call Nipsey Hussle.

It crossed my mind that we were standing mere feet from the spot of a brutal assassination but the feelings of love and respect absorbed that darkness.

After ten minutes or so, I accepted a bottle of water and reluctantly declined a plate of food—I felt it was time for me to leave. An officer opened the gate so I could exit onto the sidewalk. Another row of candles, another giant mural, another reminder that there will never be enough time or real estate to fully honor Ermias Asghedom.

I jaywalked safely across Slauson and continued up the hill towards Chesley. I began to cry. After a few paces I wondered if Nipsey would approve of my public show of grief. I don’t know why I wondered that; I just did. It’s still his neighborhood.

I quickly sniffed my emotions back into my skull and turned right. I walked a block and a half to my car and drove away. Victory Lap continued playing uninterrupted from the morning drive and I could no longer hold back my tears.