DAVID GREENE, HOST:
Today the rapper Nipsey Hussle will be honored with a memorial event in the city that he loved and that loved him back. Hussle was shot last month here in Los Angeles, where he was known as an entrepreneur, a father and a community activist.
MARQUEECE HARRIS-DAWSON: Many people felt he spoke for them. He spoke their pain. He spoke their struggles, and he spoke their hopes and dreams.
GREENE: That's LA council member Marqueece Harris-Dawson. He counts himself as one of Nipsey Hussle's many fans and says the city is going to rename a corner near where he died the Nipsey Hussle Square.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Nipsey Hussle's grandmother, Margaret Boutte, spoke to LA TV station CBS2 last week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARGARET BOUTTE: I never knew he was so much loved like I loved him. So that's uplifting - to see that so many other people loved and understood him.
MARTIN: BET Networks says it will broadcast Nipsey Hussle's funeral live today. Afterward, fans will gather at the Staples Center downtown and join a procession through south LA.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DEDICATION")
NIPSEY HUSSLE: (Rapping) ...Recreation. Dedication, hard work plus... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
