Who Is Dr. Sebi? New Details About The Controversial Doctor Nipsey Hussle Was Making A Film About
Nipsey Hussle was making a film about herbalist Dr. Sebi. Why is he controversial?
Instagram Police are treating the tragic shooting death of Nipsey Hussle as a murder related to a personal dispute between the rapper and suspect Eric Holder (not the former Attorney General just a man with the same name), but some fans are wondering if there’s more to it than that.
Before his death, Hussle had been working on a documentary about Dr. Sebi, a controversial figure in the world of alternative medicine. The Honduran herbalist claimed to have created nutritional “compounds” that could cure most health problem, including HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Sebi died in a Honduran prison in 2016, after being arrested for bringing large amounts of cash into the country. His official cause of death was pneumonia, not unusual for an 82-year-old undergoing stressful circumstances. However, some of his adherents have suspected he actually died as a result of a conspiracy to keep his health findings a secret.
Now fans are concerned that Hussle’s death was also related to the alleged conspiracy to silence Dr. Sebi and they are concerned for the safety of Nick Cannon who has pledged to continue working on the film.
Who was Dr. Sebi? Read on for all the details.
1. Herbalist
According to Dr. Sebi’s website, he was a pathologist, herbalist, biochemist, and naturalist and claimed to have studied in North America, Central, and South America, Africa, and the Caribbean, though he does not list any mentors or name any institutions where he studied. He claims that he began to study herbs after coming to America.
His bio says “Sebi came to the United States as a self-educated man who was diagnosed with asthma, diabetes, impotency, and obesity. After unsuccessful treatments with conventional doctors and traditional western medicine, Sebi was lead to an herbalist in Mexico. Finding great healing success from all his ailments, he began creating natural vegetation cell food compounds geared for inter-cellular cleansing and the revitalization of all the cells that make up the human body.”
The end result of this was the development of something he calls Dr. Sebi’s Cell Food, which he sold as a curative. A quick look at ingredient on some of the listed products show they are just combinations of herbs.
Dr. Sebi was a pathologist, herbalist, biochemist, and naturalist that Nipsey Hussle was filming a documentary on.
2. Bad science
Despite, his lofty claims about the potential of his methodology and treatment plans, the reasoning behind his statements flies in the face of established science. In one section of his website he says “According to Western medical research, diseases are a result of the host being infected with a “germ,” “virus,” or “bacteria.” In their approach in treating these “infestations,” inorganic, carcinogenic chemicals are employed. Our research immediately uncovers flaws in their premise through basic deductive reasoning. By consistently utilizing the same premise and methods, they have consistently yielded ineffective results. In essence, in the 400-year tradition of the European philosophy of medicine, their approach in treating disease has yet to produce any cures.”
This is obviously not a true statement as there are many cures for disease in Western medicine and the science of germ theory is well established.
He goes on to claim that disease can only exist in an acid environment and stresses that “thus it is inconsistent to utilize inorganic substances when treating disease because they are of an acid base. Only consistent use of natural botanical remedies will effectively cleanse and detoxify a diseased body, reversing it to its intended alkaline state.” Again, this has no basis in fact and an alkaline diet has not been shown to have significant benefits of any kind.
Dr. Sebi's theories suggest that germ theory is not real.
3. Lawsuits
Dr. Sebi attracted the attention of regulators multiple times in his career. In 1987, he was sued by New York City for practice medicine without a license. He was acquitted on the charges because the state failed to prove he had offered medical diagnoses. He was later charged by the New York State Attorney General for consumer fraud and was legally prohibited from making any therapeutic claims about his products.
Nick Cannon has stated that he will take over the Dr. Sebi documentary where Nipsey Hussle left off.
4. Famous clients
Despite the questionable efficacy and flawed science of Dr. Sebi’s approach, celebrities came to him to for treatment. Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez was visiting his clinic in Honduras when she died in a car crash there. Michael Jackson went to Aspen to have Dr. Sebi treat him for drug addiction. Sebi later sued the King of Pop for unpaid bills related to that treatment. Other celebrity clients included Steven Seagal, John Travolta, Eddie Murphy.
Fans have speculated theories about Nipsey Hussle's death, like that he was murdered over the Dr. Sebi documentary.
5. Death
Dr. Sebi was imprisoned in Honduras on charges of money laundering after two arrests, one for carrying $37,000 in cash and the second when he was caught with $50,000. He died of pneumonia in prison but his adherents suspected that his death was the result of a conspiracy of the medical establishment, the government or the so-called Illuminati to silence him.
The theory was that his herbal concoctions were so effective as to be an existential threat to the entire Western medical system. This thinking makes very little sense considering the ingreditents of his supplements were published and could easily have been replicated and tested. The fact that they weren't in wide use is more likely a symtpon of the lack of efficacy, not a wide ranging conspiracy to hide his work.
His website is still functional at the time of his writing and products are all available for purchase.
Nipsey Hussle rapped about Dr. Sebi in the song "Blue Laces 2."
6. Documentary
Hussle had an interest in Sebi’s work and even included a lyric in his the line “They killed Dr Sebi, he was teaching health,” on his song Blue Laces 2. He was producing a documentary on his legal troubles. Now that Husle has died, internet conspiracy theorists are trying to link it to the death of Sebi, despite there being no evidence to back up the idea.
Fans are even concerned for the safety of Nick Cannon who is planning to finish the project.
Fans of Nick Cannon fear for his safety after he said he would continue the Dr. Sebi documentary.
There is no planned completion date for the documentary at this time.
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Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.