Rapper Nipsey Hussle had only released one studio album, Victory Lap, before his death in early 2019. His estate has been proactive in terms of keeping his name alive as well as driving his posthumous earnings – so much so that he generated $11m in 2019 (just $1m short of what the Prince estate generated that same year) according to Forbes.
While the estates of other young rappers – notably XXXTentacion, Lil Peep and Pop Smoke – have ensured a steady flow of music since their passing to keep everything ticking over, the Hussle estate has been much more circumspect.
On 5th February, however, The Marathon was released. Described as a “visual album experience”, it debuted on YouTube (after having been teased on Nipsey Hussle’s official Instagram account) on 5th February. Visuals for the release were created by animation studio Oki Doki.
The visual release was first mentioned back in December by his estate. “In commemoration of this anniversary we’re proud to announce our collaborative effort with @okidoki to bring to life an interactive live visual album experience coming in 2021,” it said at the time. “The experience will give viewers [an] intimate look at the era that helped shape this masterpiece. The people, the places, the stories, and more.”
His family requested that the late rapper’s face should not appear in the visuals for this new release. Instead a CGI version of his Mercedes Benz SL550 convertible acts as a proxy for him and tours around locations in a virtual Los Angeles that were significant to his life and career. This is embellished with commentary from family, peers and collaborators, with the whole thing structured around themes (such as his merchandise, his time in the studio, his dealings with Epic Records, Watts Towers and so on).
The Marathon was the title of a mixtape that was first put out by Nipsey Hussle in December 2010 (and reissued as a free download on its 10th anniversary) and is also the name of his clothing brand. This 73-minute visual album experience is a lot more than just an anniversary retooling of that decade-old mixtape, flipping between music and interviews to create an interesting new music and documentary hybrid.
