Nipsey Hu$$le's been awful busy of late, breaking down the barriers of what, exactly, an independent artist can achieve with a mixtape. Quickly following his Crenshaw project—which he sold for $100 as part of his Proud2Pay campaign—Nipsey will be dropping his debut album Victory Lap soon, which he says is ready to see the streets.

"Victory Lap is ready to come out, 'cause of where I'm at, that title says a lot," Nipsey told TheStashed.com. "'Victory' is like you won, so the question is, what? What did you win? I think that the songs go into that. It's just about reaching a place in myself. I think everybody's trying to get to a place in themselves where they conquer what they was afraid of, they achieve some of their life goals, kept their word about what they were trying to do. That's what the album is about."

He also spoke about his come-up, explaining some of the hard work that got him and his team here, and which has contributed to the collective rise of West Coast artists like YG, Dom Kennedy, DJ Mustard and Ty Dolla $ign.

"Nobody came in from the West without being brought in," he said, referencing the big co-signs from older West Coast artists. "We came in from the trunk, Crenshaw and Slauson with my neighborhood behind me. I ain't have nobody big on my hook, I didn't have no big feature. We came in off our energy."

While they had him there, TheStashed also took the opportunity to ask Nips about Trinidad Jame$' recent comments about New York City hip-hop, which caused a stir and drew the ire of Maino, among a host of others.

"I do understand why some New York artists might take offense to what he said, and have their opinion about it," Nipsey said, adding that for him, as long as Trinidad stood behind his statements Nips didn't have an opinion on the matter. "And that's for them to hash out. I seen that Maino and him talked, had a convo, which they was probably supposed to do. I think it was a piece of what he said that was true, not about New York, but about the South being influential. You gotta kinda acknowledge that; the South has been very influential in hip-hop over the last decade."

Check the first video—where Nips speaks about Victory Lap—above, and the second, focusing on Trinidad Jame$' comments, below, and check the rest of the story right here.

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