Snoop Dogg Drops Nipsey Hussle Tribute "Nipsey Blue" In Honor of Birthday

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Snoop Dogg is paying tribute to his late friend and rapper Nipsey Hussle on what would have been his 35th birthday.

Once the clock struck midnight on Friday, the Long Beach legend released his tribute track titled, “Nipsey Blue,” which arrives just a day before the late rapper’s birthday. Snoop teased the drop via Instagram the day before, sharing a photo of himself standing next to a massive Nipsey mural somewhere in Los Angeles, showcasing just how prevalent the entertainer still is in his city a year and a half after his passing.

“A tribute to my neffew Nip comin tomorrow,” he wrote under the photo.

“Nipsey Blue,” samples Dorothy Moore’s record from 1976 titled “Misty Blue.”

This track isn’t the first time Snoop has paid tribute to Nipsey through his music. Just a few after Nipsey’s death, the rapper dropped “One Blood, One Cuzz” off his album, I Wanna Thank Me. The song included lyrics that honored Hussle and his legacy, with Snoop rapping:

“For God so loved the world he gave us a good Crip/The late, great Neighborhood Nip.”

In an interview with  Billboard last year, Snoop opened up about the track saying that he was inspired by the unity that Nipsey was able to bring amongst everyone; even the gang members of his community too.

“After Nipsey Hussle passed away, a lot of gang members that hadn’t talked in 30, 40 years came together. They really loved each other as friends, but through all the madness and ignorant bullshit they could never get any conversation going,” the rapper explained. “It’s like when the [Los Angeles] riots happened in 1992 and we later made The Chronic. That’s what this track is like, the same feeling. I wanted to have a record that can unify people based off of a tragic event that can lead to some positivity and peace. We all need to be together now: Bloods, Crips, black people in general.”

The Doggfather’s love for Nip still goes strong today. Check out Snoop Dogg’s latest attempt at honoring his late friend Nipsey Hussle by listening to his new song, “Nipsey Blue,” down below: