As Nipsey Hussle Square is unveiled, Blacc Sam outlines the blueprint for scaling The Marathon brand
TheGrio...
From the streets of Crenshaw to a historic partnership with Snoop Dogg, Samiel “Black Sam” Asghedom tells theGrio how the family is scaling Nipsey Hussle’s blueprint into a national model for Black ownership.
By mid-morning Saturday (Feb. 28), cameras were already rolling. City leaders gathered. Supporters filled the sidewalks. Media trucks lined the corridor. The intersection of Crenshaw Boulevard and Slauson Avenue — the same stretch Nipsey Hussle once walked as a student, sold mixtapes as a teenager, and later purchased as a businessman — now officially bears his name: Nipsey Hussle Square.
But the meaning of the moment extends far beyond a street sign.
“The true story isn’t written in metal,” Samiel “Blacc Sam” Asghedom told theGrio ahead of the dedication. “It’s written in what remains here.”
“I just feel blessed, honored, appreciative, and very happy that the honor and growth remain in that section,” he said.
For Sam and the Asghedom family, the transformation of Crenshaw and Slauson represents something Nipsey spent years working toward — ownership that outlives the individual. The very lot where Nipsey once operated The Marathon Clothing store is now being reimagined as the headquarters for the Neighborhood Nip Foundation, a community hub designed to invest directly into South Los Angeles youth.
“Everybody knows Hussle’s history from walking to school and catching the bus on Crenshaw and Slauson… to opening stores, to then buying the lot, and now even having the Neighborhood Nip Foundation there,” Sam said.
The foundation will serve students from elementary through high school, combining academic development with creative opportunity. Inspired by free recording programs that helped shape Nipsey’s early musical journey, the center will include a professional-grade recording studio, but access won’t come without accountability.
Under the foundation’s model, students must complete study hours through the Vector 90 curriculum before earning studio time, reinforcing discipline alongside creativity.
“He always would message the team and me about how important those spaces were for youth,” Sam recalled. “He was like, man, just a little help goes a long way.”
Rather than reopening another retail storefront, the family chose to invest in infrastructure.
“We didn’t want to open the clothing store back up at that location,” Sam explained. “It just came to us like, man, we need to make this the Neighborhood Nip Foundation. We need to bring back that same program that Hustle wanted in that parking lot.”
The studio component is expected to launch later this year, turning the intersection into something far more lasting than a memorial. Instead, more of a pipeline.
That same long-view thinking now guides the expansion of The Marathon brand itself.
On Sunday, Marathon Burger will open its fourth location on Pine Avenue in Long Beach through a partnership with Snoop Dogg and his son Cordell Broadus. Nipsey always envisioned The Marathon as more than apparel or music.
“He told our whole team about building a brand and gave us the blueprint,” Sam said. “He always envisioned the Marathon brand being a full lifestyle brand — music, film, fashion, and now food.”
The Long Beach expansion carries personal history. The city served as one of Nipsey’s earliest mixtape markets, making the move both strategic and symbolic. But Sam emphasized that this partnership goes beyond celebrity alignment.
“We really were appreciative that they came in with investment to help us open up a fourth location so fast,” he said, noting that the Broadus family also helped navigate local permitting and political relationships. “I don’t think we would have been able to open this location so fast without them.”
In an industry often built on endorsements, Sam draws a clear distinction between visibility and ownership.
Support, he said, means investment.
That same protective approach extends to Nipsey’s music catalog as anticipation builds around the upcoming project “Prolific.” Sam was adamant that the release is not a posthumous compilation assembled for streams.
“This is something that he put together,” Sam said. “He sequenced the track listing. He picked what made it and what didn’t.”
He described his brother as meticulous about cohesion, even removing strong songs that disrupted an album’s emotional flow.
“Many times I’m like, bro, these songs are amazing. Why are you taking them off?” Sam recalled. “He’s like, ‘Nah, it’s a good song, but it doesn’t fit the album. I want my album to have a feel and a vibe.’ That was his art, and he obsessed over it.”
The family intentionally waited years before releasing new music.
“We didn’t want to rush anything,” Sam said. “I never wanted to just compile music together and try to put it out as an album. I don’t feel that’s the correct thing to do.”
The forthcoming project features only collaborators Nipsey personally worked with, no added features designed to manufacture attention.
“These are people that he created music with,” Sam said, calling them “the usual suspects.”
As the Los Angeles Marathon approaches on March 8, the Neighborhood Nip Foundation will also serve as an official charity partner, with hundreds of runners already signed up under its banner.
“We’re going to be running,” Sam said with a laugh. “We try to make sure we finish it. That’s my main goal.”
Finishing, however, has never been the point.
What’s unfolding at Crenshaw and Slauson is not simply remembrance. It is execution. Property turned into a platform and a vision built on ownership that is expanding in real time.
The Marathon, as Blacc Sam sees it, was never meant to stop.