"I’ll never forget the journey of watching him go from the mixtape circuit to becoming Grammy nominated."

Machine Gun Kelly has postponed the release of his new single following the death of Nipsey Hussle.

Read more: Nipsey Hussle, 1985-2019: a musician who gave a voice to the voiceless and changed the face of indie rap

Hussle was shot and killed earlier this week (March 31) outside of his Marathon Clothing Company store in the Hyde Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles, south of the Crenshaw area.

Because of the tragedy, Kelly has now made the decision to postpone the release date of the first single from his forthcoming new album, ‘Hotel Diablo’. Pushing it back from its scheduled date of April 5, the rapper thanked Spotify’s Head of Urban Music, Carl Chery for inspiring his decision.

“We were dropping first song off the album Friday,” MGK tweeted. “But out of respect for Nip, we’re gonna stay silent this week. Respect to @carlchery for inspiring that action.”

He also steered fans to some of Hussle’s back catalogue, naming ‘The Marathon’ and ‘The Marathon Continues’ mixtapes as two projects by Hussle that motivated him when he first started out as a rapper.

The “inspiring” action that Kelly referred to from Chery came when the Spotify executive instructed artists not to promote their music using Hussle’s name.

“Do NOT try to promote your music in any post paying tribute to Nipsey,” he said. “Have some fuckin’ sense and some fuckin’ respect!”

Earlier in the week (April 1), Kelly joined the legion of people paying tribute to Hussle, following the announcement of his passing. “Haven’t slept. im just up thinking about how i could feel the energy drain from everything when Nipsey died yesterday,” he began. “the air felt different. fuck man. i’ll never forget the journey of watching him go from the mixtape circuit to becoming Grammy nominated. he gave me hope. rip.”

Drake was another artist to pay tribute to Hussle, during the first night of his London residency at The O2 (or The O3). On stage, Drake projected an image of Hussle’s face onto the floor before he performed ‘Elevate’. Before the song kicked in, he told the crowd: “Want you to make some noise for the people who love you.”

He later added: “Cheers to my brother, rest easy my g. London, I love you.”

Hussle was reportedly set to meet with police chiefs less than 24 hours after he was gunned down. He was due to meet with the LAPD on April 1 to discuss initiatives and strategies to keep teenagers away from gang crime.

Posting on Twitter, LA Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff, wrote: “We ( LAPDChiefMoore and I ) were meeting , at the request of NipseyHussle with him and rocnation tomorrow at 4pm to talk about ways he could help stop gang violence and help us help kids. I’m so very sad.”