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00:00how nipsey hustle's kids spend his 15 million dollar inheritance after seven long years stuck
00:05inside a probate court nipsey hustle's fortune is finally settled and his daughter imani and his son
00:10cross finally got what their pops left behind as children imani and cross finally received their
00:15inheritance the marathon is complete but what's really got the streets talking is how they're
00:19spending all those millions let's break it down the marathon finally hit the finish line the wait
00:26is finally over more than seven years after nipsey hustle got taken a court in los angeles put the
00:31pen to the final handover of his estate to his two kids the case closed out on a sunday in
00:35early july
00:36of 2026 and with that one signature the longest chapter of the hustle family story came to an end
00:41his daughter imani asgetum is 17 now his son cross asgetum is nine according to court documents
00:47obtained by tmz both kids got paid out in cash and other assets and the two of them split everything
00:53right down the middle on a 50 50 basis ain't no favorite child and ain't no bigger half whatever
00:58their father built they hold it equally the cash number itself stayed on the low the dollar amounts
01:03paid to each child were sealed by the court which is normal when the ones receiving the money are
01:07minors so the exact number that hit each account is not out there what is out there is that money
01:12was
01:12not the only thing they came up on so we got some good news finally nipsey hustle's estate is finally
01:18settled that one moment carried the weight of seven long years for most of that stretch the businesses
01:24stayed open and the paperwork kept moving but the kids could not touch a dime of it the court had
01:29to
01:29close the case out first as children imani and cross finally received their inheritance the marathon is
01:34complete the word marathon keeps coming back in this story because it was nip's word he used it for his
01:39brand his mindset and the way he wanted his people to move so when folks say the marathon is complete
01:44they borrowing the same language he built his whole life around the payout was not just cash the court
01:49records also list other assets there was a 2012 chevy suburban there was an ownership stake in the
01:55marathon clothing company and there were trademarks tied to nip's name and his brand the kids did not just
02:00inherit dollars they inherited pieces of a whole empire a stake in a business is not the same as a
02:06stack in a
02:06bank a business keeps eating after you get it and a trademark keeps generating every time the brand
02:11gets used so the shape of this inheritance already tells you plenty about how it got built the one who
02:16handed all of it over is nip's big brother samuel as get him who everybody in the city calls black
02:21sam
02:22he was the administrator of the estate meaning he ran it protected it and answered to the court for every
02:27move made along the way for seven years that was his job on top of grieving his own little brother
02:32most estates that get stuck in probate for years end up bleeding out money leaks to the lawyers the
02:37businesses lose steam and the opportunities dry all the way up what went down here was closer to the
02:42opposite and that alone makes this story different for cross the money got received on his behalf by
02:47his mother lauren london signed a document acknowledging that cross's share was paid out
02:51since a nine-year-old cannot be out here managing a fortune on his own that signature was one of
02:56the last
02:56pieces the court needed nipsey hustle his estate has now been paid out to his daughter and his son
03:03so on paper the headline reads simple two kids one estate a clean split and a case that is finally
03:09shut but a headline never tells you what it costs to get there this case outlasted a full murder trial
03:14a guardianship war and round after round of litigation the bad news it took seven long years to get there
03:24and in those seven years let me tell you what his family went through seven years is a long time
03:28for
03:28kids to grow up while lawyers fight over what their father left them to understand why it dragged like
03:33that you got to go all the way back to the beginning back to a man who spent his short
03:37life preaching
03:38ownership to his people and to the one afternoon that took him away from his own kids the og who
03:44drew up
03:44the blueprint to understand the inheritance you got to understand the man because nipsey hustle was never
03:50just a rapper he was born ermias asdabum and he came up in the crenshaw section of south los angeles
03:56that neighborhood was not just his home it was his whole business plan he believed you could build
04:01wealth right there on your own block and keep it in your own hood his biggest symbol of that idea
04:06was
04:06the marathon clothing store he took a beat-up strip mall on the corner of slawson and crenshaw and
04:11flipped it into a store people drove across the whole city to touch the store stood for his belief that
04:16money could be made local and kept local he also helped open a spot called vector 90 a co-working
04:22and stem space built to put young ones from south central onto technology and mentorship he was
04:26pouring his bread right back into the same streets that raised him his whole message was ownership he
04:31told the people to buy back their own block own they masters and build businesses that stay in the
04:35neighborhood he put that message all in his music then backed it up with his own money plenty of folks
04:40talked that wealth talk but nip took a corner store and turned it into something the whole country
04:44recognized that drive started early and his brother watched it up close before nip was famous he was
04:50a young dude hustling every way he could think of he built his own computer out of stolen parts
04:54he burned cds to move and he flipped a school run into a whole operation you know bro bro was
05:00the
05:00visionary and brought it from an early age from an early age man that is black sam calling his little
05:06brother the one who always saw the bigger picture and that word visionary is exactly why this estate even
05:11exists nip did not blow his money as fast as it came in he put it into real things real
05:16estate
05:17businesses trademarks he treated ownership like religion he was serious about cash in a way that
05:22sounds almost crazy in one family story a fat stack of money got buried in a backyard wrapped up like
05:27sandwich bags and it got water damaged and had to get dried out piece by piece my brother burying 200
05:32,000
05:33in the backyard it was um wrapped in plastic like sandwich bags stories like that tell you how this
05:40family thought about money it was physical it was protected and it was something you held down instead
05:44of flashing and losing that mindset is a big reason the estate survived long enough to reach his kids
05:48now the kids nip had two children with two different partners his first child is emony who was born on
05:54november 9th 9th 2008 to a woman named tanisha foster his second child is cross who was born in 2016
06:01to the actress lauren london before he passed nip had sole custody of emony meaning she was living
06:07with him with cross he was in a long public relationship with lauren london and the two
06:12of them raised their son together lauren was a well-known actress in her own right and she has an
06:16older son named cameron from a past relationship so cross was coming up in a home that already knew
06:21fame and knew how to keep a private life private nip talked about fatherhood the same way he talked
06:26about business on purpose and with intention in an interview with nba star stephen curry he broke
06:32down the little speech he ran with emony every morning on the way to school he drilled her on
06:36integrity confidence and leadership until it stuck he called it their script he told curry it seemed
06:42basic but he wanted her to look back on the things he thought was important that is the version of
06:46nip
06:46that shaped these two kids not the headlines and not the money the morning drills and the game he passed
06:51down behind all of it stood a solid family his big brother black sam was his business partner his
06:57sister samantha smith was close with the children and his mother angelique smith was in the daily
07:02picture too this was an eritrean american and african-american family with deep roots on the
07:07same streets nip built on when he was gone this was the family that had to step up and everything
07:12he
07:12created only becomes an inheritance if the man who built it is no longer around to run it that is
07:18the
07:18hardest turn in this whole story and it came on one afternoon when a man he knew walked up on
07:23him
07:23outside his own store the day the whole block stopped the date was march 31st 2019 it was a sunday
07:31afternoon and nipsey hustle was posted outside the marathon clothing store the same store he turned into
07:37a landmark in the same hood he came up in he was 33 years old for his brother the day
07:42started with a
07:43phone that would not quit man it woke me up and i picked the phone up and then did you
07:49know forget
07:50who called me man black sam did not need the full sentence to know something was wrong he could hear
07:54it in the sound on the other end of the line voices panic and then the words no brother ever
07:58wants to
07:59hear i just hear people screaming in the background and they like man you know bro got shot their grandmother
08:05stayed only a few blocks from the store so black sam bolted out the crib left the door wide open
08:10behind
08:11him and drove straight there without stopping for nothing so i just ran every light every stop sign
08:17and i'll get there and man by the time he pulled up it was chaos and there was a heavy
08:23weight to
08:23where it went down nip did not get shot in some far off place he got shot in the parking
08:28lot of the
08:28store he built to lift his own hood up in the neighborhood he refused to leave even after he made
08:32it
08:33the spot that stood for his best idea became the spot he lost his life according to investigators and
08:38trial evidence a former acquaintance named eric holder jr walked up left and then came back and
08:43opened fire nip got hit multiple times prosecutors later said he was struck at least 10 times two other
08:49men nearby got wounded but survived nip was rushed to a hospital but he did not make it he was
08:54gone
08:54and two kids had just lost their father the killing sent a shock through los angeles and through the
08:59whole culture crowds packed crenshaw within hours people held vigils left flowers and stood in that
09:05parking lot just to be near the spot where it happened this was not just the loss of a famous
09:09artist it was the loss of a man who poured his own money right back into the streets around him
09:14in the months and years after those memorials never faded they turned into murals then into
09:19street tributes and eventually into a permanent landmark on his corner the city held his name down
09:24and so did his hood that lasting love is part of why his estate kept growing instead of quietly fading
09:29out the man responsible did not stay ghost for long the shooting got caught on nearby surveillance
09:33video which became a key piece of the case holder turned himself in two days later the motive traced
09:38back to a personal beef inside their shared circles and prosecutors argued the attack was planned
09:44because holder had time to leave and then come back with a gun the road to a verdict was not
09:48smooth
09:49at one point during the proceedings holder got jumped in jail and could not show up in court which
09:53pushed the case back even further but the case did reach an end in july of 2022 a jury convicted
09:59holder of first-degree murder finding that the killing was planned and deliberate for the two
10:03wounded men the jury convicted him on two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter instead of
10:08attempted murder along with a gun charge then came the sentence on february 22nd 2023 holder got
10:14sentenced to 60 years to life in prison that number came from 25 years to life for the murder another
10:2025 years for using a gun and 10 more years for the assault charges holder is now serving his time
10:25in
10:25california state prison and will not be eligible for parole until november of 2039 so justice in the
10:31legal sense got served but justice does not write a will and here's the cold part of the timing nip
10:36preached ownership and planning louder than almost anybody in his generation yet when he passed one
10:42document was missing that single missing document is what turned a clean inheritance into a seven-year war
10:48seven years stuck in the system when a person dies without a will they die with the law calls
10:54intestate it is a simple word for a messy situation it means the person left no written instructions so
10:59a court has to step in and decide what happens to everything they owned that is exactly where nip's
11:04family landed in 2019 under california law the estate went to his two children emony and cross as the only
11:11heirs that part was clear what was not clear was who would control the money while the kids were young
11:15who would run the businesses and how every debt and dispute would get handled so the estate went into
11:20probate and black sam got appointed to run it as administrator one financial commentator broke down
11:25the danger of dying without a will right at the start back in 2019 and his warning aged perfectly
11:31don't leave that will your money gets locked up in that in probate and the judges are making money
11:37that is dr boyce watkins and he called it without a will the money gets locked up the process drags
11:43on
11:43and the fees stack up while the family sits and waits that is the trap nips estate fell into and
11:48it
11:48held on for years but the biggest hold up was not about money at first it was about a child
11:53the fight
11:54over imani became the heart of the whole probate battle nip had sole custody of her before he passed
11:59after he was gone his family including his sister samantha smith moved to become the legal guardian over
12:05imani and her share of the inheritance they said they were protecting her and her future imani's mother
12:10tanisha foster saw it way different she wanted her daughter and she pushed back hard in court the
12:15dispute got public and it got ugly in one filing foster accused the family of taking her daughter
12:20and refusing to give her back imani's mother tanisha foster is claiming that samantha smith
12:25took her daughter from her and refuses to give her back that accusation shows how deep the wound went
12:32this was not some simple paperwork delay this was two sides of a grieving family both saying they
12:37wanted what was best for the same little girl and neither side willing to fall back and every time
12:41they clashed the estate stayed frozen the cameras were right there too when tanisha foster left one
12:46court hearing reporters were posted up waiting on her and you could feel the tension in the moment
12:59that short clip captures the whole mood of those years a mother heated walking away from a courthouse
13:05while the media circled a story about a dead man's money and a living child cross's side was way calmer
13:10lauren london filed for guardianship of her son with barely any opposition from the family there
13:15was no public war over cross and no accusations flying back and forth his path through the system
13:20was quiet which is a big reason his share moved without the same drama on top of the custody fight
13:24more problems piled up creditors came forward with claims against the estate and every new claim
13:29meant the case had to stay open a little longer then comes the creditors songwire filed a motion
13:34trying to keep the state open claiming nipsey owed her money every claim like that had to get checked
13:38argued and settled before the court would even think about closing the case and while the lawyers
13:42went back and forth the meter kept running more court dates meant more legal fees and those fees
13:47came straight out of what nip built for his kids then came a fight nobody saw coming a fight over
13:52words
13:52the most important phrase in nips whole world turned into a legal battle then came the trademark
13:57dispute the phrase the marathon continues the words nipsy live by think about how wild that is the very
14:03slogan that summed up his life had to get defended in court like any other piece of property but that
14:07is exactly why it mattered a trademark is a real asset and protecting it protected the value of
14:12the whole brand for his children then slow but sure things broke loose the two sides went into
14:17mediation instead of a full trial and in 2025 the custody fight was finally resolved tanisha foster
14:23and nips family agreed to share legal and physical custody of emini with that agreement locked in the
14:28biggest roadblock to closing the estate was gone and the path to the final payout was finally open
14:33but all those years of fighting hid something from view because while the family clashed the
14:38estate itself was not sitting still what the kids really came up on here's the part almost nobody
14:44expects during the same seven years the family was locked in a courtroom the estate did not shrink
14:49it ran up when it first hit the court system the picture was way smaller legal filings about a year
14:54and a half after nips death valued the probate estate at around 4.2 million dollars by the end it
14:59had grown
15:00into something way bigger meanwhile the estate that started at just over four million dollars grew
15:05that growth was not luck it was black sam running the businesses instead of shutting them down
15:09and a family choosing to hold on to ownership instead of cashing out eleven million dollars
15:14his business kept reducing the marathon closing kept running by the time the case closed the estate
15:18was reported to be worth about eleven million dollars that is a serious bag for two kids to inherit
15:23and it is a sign of how well the estate got managed but the size of it is only half
15:28of the surprise
15:28the other half is that so much of it is not cash the kids can go out and spend it
15:32is tied up in the
15:33businesses their father built in a strip mall in trademarks and in trust funds money being made but
15:38children who could not touch it that was true for seven years while the case was open and a version
15:43of it is still true now that the case is closed imani and cross did not come up on a
15:47big pile of cash
15:48to blow however they want they came up on ownership and ownership plays a whole different game look at what
15:53is actually on the list the kids received an interest in the marathon clothing company various
15:57trademarks and a 2012 chevy suburban one of the most valuable pieces is the building itself black
16:03sam has said the strip mall that holds the marathon clothing store is now in the children's
16:07names and that its value has already doubled that is not spending money that is a slow growing asset
16:12there is also a steady stream of income that has nothing to do with day-to-day sales just weeks
16:17before he passed nip signed an endorsement deal with puma after his death the company honored that
16:22deal in a way few people expected puma makes unconditional deposits into the children's
16:27trust funds every year whether the clothing sells well or not as black sam put it just
16:31off the top every year they hit the kids in the trust fund that is money set aside for the
16:35future
16:36not handed over for a shopping spree the brand kept eating in other ways too black sam launched
16:40a california-based restaurant chain called marathon burger the marathon clothing brand kept dropping
16:45sneaker collabs and in february of 2026 the family unveiled nipsey hustle square in crenshaw turning his
16:52corner into a permanent landmark every one of these moves added value to the estate and kept his name
16:58working so what does all this really mean for imani and cross day to day for the most part it
17:03means
17:03they are owners not spenders the bulk of what they came up on is locked into trusts and business
17:08ownership that are built to grow over time not to get drained the children are set to fully split his
17:13assets once they reach adulthood so even now the structure keeps them from just blowing through it
17:18a trust acts like a set of guard rails instead of a kid getting a huge sum all at once
17:22it releases
17:23money over time and for real needs like school health and living costs for a 17 year old and a
17:289 year old that is protection this is the difference between spending money and building wealth spending
17:33is a moment that ends when the money is gone building is a system that keeps eating and gets passed
17:39down
17:39you can already see the result in how they living when nip passed fans and even celebrities like
17:44former nfl star reggie bush offered money to help the children and the family turned it down because
17:49the kids were already secure and this year imani graduated from high school at 17 with both her
17:54mother tanisha foster and her uncle black sam there to celebrate her her life has been about school
17:59family and growing up steady in the end that is exactly what nip wanted his brother has said that even
18:04when they were chasing the bag nip reminded him the mission was bigger than the money that was black
18:09sam locked in on the cash and then he remembers what his little brother told him back bigger than
18:14that that was the whole point and it is the reason his kids are set up the way they are
18:18he did not want
18:19them to get a big check and watch it disappear he wanted them to own something real that keeps running
18:24long after he was gone that is the inheritance in one line not a stack to blow but ownership to
18:29build on
18:30if you know anything about nip you already know that is the most fitting ending there could be
18:34now we want to hear from you would you lock the money into ownership the way this family did or
18:38would you have moved different drop your answer in the comments and let us know what you would
18:42want to leave behind for your own family thanks for watching
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