M-1 and Sticman spoke in detail with Cipha Sounds and Peter Rosenberg about the creation of their classic “Hip Hop,” their album “Let’s Get Free” and told an incredible story about their relationship with the late great Nipsey Hussle and how he wanted to do an album that was essentially a redo of the Dead Prez “Let’s Get Free.”
Stic and M-1 (Dead Prez talk meeting Nipsey Hussle and how he wanted to redo “Let’s Get Free”)
Stic- “So, fast forward, I have never really shared this. I had a conversation with Nipsey Hussle before he passed, maybe a year ago, actually a little bit before that. He had just solidified his deal with Atlantic Records. I had met him before through a friend Zayd Malik. We got on a jet and had a talk, and he told me about what he had been trying to do up until that point as an independent artist, and how he wanted his situation to be with Atlantic, he had made certain personal goals so he could

Nipsey Hussle by Jimmy Fontaine/Atlantic Records
partner with them. He wanted to talk to me about his three album mission, which was to do “Victory Lap,” another album, and then his third one, which was his last final one he would owe Atlantic, and call it “The Spook Who Sat by the Door” and he told me he wanted to redo “Let’s Get Free,” and wanted our permission. Right, to sample and redo it for what he called “his generation” with all of the admiration he had for that record. We just had a heart to heart, back and forth, but obviously we didn’t get to go there, but I wanted to talk about the type of heart Nip had and where he was coming from, as it relates to that.
Rosenberg- “I knew he was a student, I could always tell he was a student, and he was not, like all true hip hop heads, coasts had nothing to do with it, he wanted it all. I did not know he was so influenced; it makes perfect sense.”
Ciph “100%”
M-1 “It hit me hard man, the day he got shot, I had just landed in Cali for a boxing film I was a part of. As soon as I landed, it was blowing up on the phone. Where Nip was going with it man, is definitely in a lot of ways, tribally speaking, we were in the same space.”
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