LOS ANGELES, Calif. - His eyes are focused on his work and his fingers clutch a digital pen, but less than two weeks after losing his friend, business partner, and muse, artist Archer One is still searching for words.
“We’re hoping after Thursday we’re going to have a little bit more closure,” said the former street artist, whose real name is Christian Lucero, of the public memorial for Hussle at the Staples Center.
Lucero has been designing graphics and illustrations for Nipsey Hussle’s business ventures and The Marathon Clothing line since the brand’s beginning. Even now, he’s still working on projects that will be released posthumously for the rapper.
Like his friend and business partner, Archer One has a gangster rap pedigree. He grew up with Crips, made his mark tagging Los Angeles streets, and even survived his own shooting as a teenager. But the fact Hussle was shot and killed over a spat outside his The Marathon Clothing store in South L.A., baffles him. He called the gun violence “ignorant.”
“I’m still in a big fog,” Archer One said. “Some stuff I don’t even know how to explain.”
Like many celebrities, the business of Nipsey Hussle was much bigger than one man and so was his favorite metaphor, the marathon.
“The marathon is a celebration of just getting up and doing it,” Archer One said.
Under Hussle’s guidance, the brand was exploding and Archer One designed it all: an iconic moon man logo emblazoned with words like ‘love’ and ‘respect,’ the clothing for Hussle’s upcoming doll, a ‘Simsponized’ cartoon of the rapper and even a marijuana vape pen with a logo that lights up red.
To the business partners, ‘marathon’ means you keep going, even when you can’t see the finish line.
“Even when sh*t looks bad, when it doesn’t look like you’re going to succeed, but if you keep at it, that’s the marathon,” Archer One said.
The metaphor is carrying the entire team forward as they continue to work on the business without Hussle, focused on cementing his legacy.
As Archer One grapples with the loss, an image came to him. He drew it immediately: Hussle’s hand in heaven reaching down, handing him a baton.
The meaning: the marathon is now a relay and the team will see it through.