Trinidadian Mentor of Nipsey Hussle Set to Release Nipsey NFTs.

Dexter Browne, the Trinidadian mentor of martyred Hip Hop legend Nipsey Hussle, has announced the release of a special NFT offering called ‘Nipsey Hussle: the Early Years.’ The NFT’s are set to be dropped at the end of May 2024.

The announcement came on Easter Sunday- on the 5th anniversary of Nipsey’s March 31st murder in Los Angeles in 2019. There will be 3 tiers of NFTs- numbering 10, 10, and 100- in descending order of price. The NFTs are a Tribute to the progressive values Nipsey stood for and are also a mentor’s salute to the idea that all youths can be redeemed. The NFTs are created in collaboration with Digital Artist Jean ‘Normal Normal’ Benoit and Multi-media Artist/ Cultural Activist, Rubadiri Victor.

NFTs have become unique and creative holders of value in the Digital Age. NFTs- or non-fungible tokens- are unique digital objects that are recorded digitally on a blockchain and are used to certify ownership and authenticity. They cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. Although the market for NFTs is going through a cool period following the bubble of 2021 to 2023, NFTs have fetched prices as high as US$93 million. NFTs are unique digital artefacts in this online Age and take all kinds of shapes- from paintings to cartoons to stunning animation .

The premium Nipsey NFT- which will be offered first to certain collectors and museums- will consist of a series of never seen before photographs of Nipsey in the 5 years under Browne’s tutelage after the young Ermias Joseph Asghedom was kicked out of school and was working on the streets. It will also include a short documentary about the period that Nipsey and a cohort of young people- including boys from the Rolling 60s gang- spent under Dexter and his wife Lisa’s tutelage- and as part of their Buttervision multi-media Movement. The NFTs also include a series of other rare collectibles.

Dexter’s personal collection contains hundreds of photographs of Nipsey as he grew from boy to man and creative powerhouse. The collection also contains music, interviews, and videos created by and with Nipsey from this fertile period. Most of Nipsey’s first recorded music is in this collection. This itself is a small fraction of Browne’s larger portfolio of tens of thousands of photographs that he took of young Black Hollywood and Hip Hop as he recorded their lives and created their professional dossiers. During this period- when Dexter had ‘adopted the boys from the Crips, and others from inside and outside the neighborhood- he was also working with movie and TV stars, super models, musicians, porn and sports stars, and politicians. These range from Gabrielle Union to Kat Williams, from Vanessa Williams to Rick James. All of this context is in the premium Nipsey NFT.

A media statement issued further explains that Dexter had gifted Nipsey and the boys with a fully outfitted multi-media studio that they had 24 hours access to- once they left gang beef at the door. They also had to listen to Dexter’s Pan-African consciousness, which he had imbibed as a civil engineer student at Howard University. Nipsey benefitted from being around the celebrity and the progressive ideas of Buttervision. Buttervision itself was a multi-media collective that saw itself as using the new digital technology of the late 1990s and early 2000s to try and create an alternative to Hollywood and mainstream media, which marginalizes and stereotypes black and brown people. Dexter’s ideas of Digital Defiance, Undisturbed Culture, and more, would find their most willing student in Nipsey Hussle.

The ‘Nipsey Hussle: the Early Years’ NFTs will be available at the Open Sea NFT site at the end of May. Details of the offering will be announced on the site, at the Undisturbed Culture Facebook page, and at Buttervision.com.