With ‘PROLIFIC,’ Bino Rideaux Looks to Continue the Marathon Nipsey Hussle Started

Bino Rideaux’s first recording session with Nipsey Hussle began with a wake-up call. Awoken by Nip, the sleeping Bino arose to the sight of Young Dolph standing beneath the glow of blue lights in Nipsey’s San Fernando Valley studio. After years of being told he’d get to collaborate with the Slauson legend, Bino had finally been summoned to the studio the day prior. Before his lean-induced nap, he played the back, watching and observing until it was his time to prove himself. Now, in just his first session, it was time to collaborate with two icons of the independent hustle. 

“I felt like I was just among bosses,” Bino tells Okayplayer. “As soon as Coach pulled [my] jersey, I jumped in the game, trying to be my best self and just put in as much effort as I could.” That effort became “The Field,” a 2016 cut from Nipsey’s Slauson Boy 2 mixtape. It was the first song Nipsey and Bino ever recorded. Even more specifically, it was the first seed of a creative union that would lead to PROLIFIC, Bino and Nipsey’s second joint LP. Set to be released on August 14, just one day before what would have been Nipsey’s 41st birthday, the album is set to be both a celebration and continuation of a rap legacy that began in Crenshaw over 20 years ago. While it is being released seven years after Nipsey’s passing, his team says PROLIFIC isn’t a posthumous album in the traditional sense; it was recorded and sequenced nearly two years before his death. 

Checking in at 15 tracks, PROLIFIC, the sequel to Bino and Nipsey’s 2017 project, No Pressure, is a stylish constellation of astral West Coast bounce and ruminations from a couple hustlers. PROLIFIC spotlights the dimensions of romance; Nip provides his typically plainspoken bars, Bino provides the melodies, and folks like Mike & Keys, Mixed By Ali, Cyrus Taghipour, Axel Folie and others serve up the production. 

For “Count on You,” Nipsey and Bino shift back to the streets for a reflection on bonds broken by loyalty, death, or otherwise. Meanwhile, on the Annie Lennox-sampling “Sacrifices,” Nipsey and Bino alternate between reflections on how to be better lovers, with the foggy Mike & Keys soundscape playing out like the kind of abyss you don’t mind getting lost in. Somewhat ominously, “Reckless” nods to the type of oblivion you rush toward. “Reckless with passion lately / Driving this fast Mercedes / Reckless with passion lately / Fuck if I crash, don't save me,” Nip shouts on the track. 

Unsparing, bluntly emotional, and characteristically L.A., it’s a convergence of aesthetic, technique and message that’s unmistakably Nip and Bino. For Bino, who remembers watching Nipsey begin his marathon years ago, it’s further affirmation of a bond that transcends life and death. 

“Everything that I do or everything that I'm a part of is always going to be a reflection of bro,” Bino says. “Bro’s always in the room.” For a three-month period in 2017, they both were. Physically. Specifically, in the studio. Following their first recording session, Bino recalls collaborating with Nipsey in the studio nearly every day, grilling crab legs, eating wings, smoking OG kush, playing basketball, and watching documentaries Bino would’ve never thought to watch otherwise. “Nip always put us on and somehow at the end of watching that shit, it resonated with us,” Bino says. “It’s not a lot of shit that came out his mouth that I didn’t learn from.”

While Bino got an education from Nipsey, he also notes the All Money In label founder didn’t micromanage. “He might give me a synopsis [about] what we talking about, but he always trusted me wholeheartedly,” Bino says. For his part, Nipsey’s older brother, Blacc Sam, says the in-studio connection was symbiotic. 

“Bino would come up with a hook, and then that hook would inspire Hussle like, ‘Oh yeah, I got it. I know the direction, let me go in my verse,’” Sam says. “It was easy for them to create music so they kind of like ping-pong and bounce off of each other. That’s why the music was getting done at such a high level and so fast together.”

While the music was recorded fast, it was also recorded a long time ago. The team says finding a release date for the project, which they say Nipsey had completed by 2017, was just a matter of finding a time everyone respected and agreed upon. But Sam makes it clear the release was always in the plans for Nip, who released his major label debut album, Victory Lap, in February 2018. 

“I remember personally when Hussle gave me this project and was like, ‘Man, this is the next project I wanna put out. This is me and Bino locked in for another one,’” Sam says. “[Nipsey] always respected talent and he was a champion of people’s talent. Anybody that he was inspired by, by listening to their music, whether they were new artists or older artists, he always wanted to reach out and try to be collaborative.”

That collaboration forged a short but impactful apprenticeship that reverberates in Bino’s mind to this day. “To see how he carried himself on a daily basis and [to see] how much respect he had for everybody regardless of their position or status — if you were solid, you were solid,” he says. “That's something that really, really stuck with me and I'll say it changed me, [and] made me better.”

By his own admission, Bino was a “young knucklehead” when he met Nipsey. But now, he’s 33 — the same age Nipsey was when he died seven years ago. He remembers the work ethic, but he also remembers the responsibility; despite being in the studio until 5 in the morning, Nip would still be up to take his daughter to school. “You kind of sit back and you realize what really matters,” Bino says. “I feel like it’s a complete 180,” he explains. “I’m a family man. I spend time with my kids.” 

Ahead of its release, PROLIFIC sits as both a testament to the music Nipsey created and the new music he won’t be able to. For his part, Sam made sure their family had the album, but he hasn’t pressured them to listen to it. It was hard enough for him to listen to it on his own. But being the dutiful brother he is, he sat with the team to ensure it’s completed the way Nip would have wanted. Bino is sure the album is just that. 

“I think bro would love it and just kind of let me know he’s proud of what this s—t has become,” he says. “And that we still not done.”