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WWith his rainbow braids and prominent facial tattoos, it’s hard not to watch rapper SoundCloud and viral sensation Tekashi 6ix9ine. The 24-year-old, who has collaborated with Nicki Minaj and Kanye West, would not have done it any other way. More than his current music, the self-proclaimed social media ‘supervillain’, former gang member and convict is known for his shocking online antics and run-ins with the law. For him, no publicity is bad publicity – does the latest Hulu documentary, 69: The Danny Hernandez Saga, just play into the young provocer’s blind thirst for the spotlight?
Announced both as an “investigative documentary” and as a “gangster story”, the film traces the rapper’s life from his childhood until his arrest in late 2018 on charges of attempted murder and robbery. army. A year earlier, he had mingled with the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, a violent subset of the East Coast prison gang, to bolster his image and credibility on the streets. Gummo, her 2017 music video featuring cameos from several gang members, has exploded in popularity. Things quickly got worse. He straddled the costs of associated infamy to break the internet before going too deep. Fast forward after several convictions and an abbreviated prison term due to his cooperation with the authorities, and today 6ix9ine has reached an all-time high as one of hip hop’s most despised figures.
“I was trying to find the moment when Internet violence turned into real violence,” filmmaker Vikram Gandhi tells The Guardian. “It’s one thing to have the symbols and appearance of gun violence and gang membership. It’s when the line is crossed into something else – physical violence, people getting punched in the face, groups circling around shooting people – that’s when you know it isn’t. is more of a show.
Fascinated by the new generation of SoundCloud rappers so divorced from his own conception of New York hip-hop, Gandhi discovered 6ix9ine in 2018 and picked up his camera when he was arrested months later. A bit of a prankster himself, Gandhi knows a thing or two about posture to get attention. In Kumaré, his 2011 documentary, he posed as a spiritual guru and gained many followers despite being a fake. In 69, he drops the costume and delves into the life and times of the notorious figure whose invented character has become too real for his own good.
Prior to his rise, 6ix9ine was Danny Hernandez, a first generation New Yorker born to immigrant parents from Mexico and Puerto Rico. Raised in poverty by a single mother and traumatized by the absence of his father and the murder of his stepfather, Hernandez led a difficult childhood in the shadow of anonymity before discovering the powers of Instagram and Youtube. “When I realized he had grown up in Bushwick, near my home,” Gandhi told The Guardian during a video call. “I realized that I knew exactly the neighborhood he came from and the bodega in which he worked.
Drawing inspiration from past interviews, social media posts, audio recordings, videos, court documents and transcripts, Gandhi invokes the digital spirit of Tekashi 6ix9ine without ever speaking to him. The rapper’s team ignored Gandhi’s interview requests and recently denounced the documentary. But for the filmmaker, 6ix9ine’s cooperation never really mattered. “When I started, I didn’t know if he was going to get out of prison. He could have been sentenced much longer. I was making the film whether it came out or not, ”Gandhi explains. “In making feature films, you will always have a narrative arc that is beyond some people’s control. I think [6ix9ine] is inclined to do interviews where he can manipulate the narrative. He lives a large part of his life online, anyway. This is where it really exists. What would he tell me that he hasn’t already said?
Indeed, Tekashi is good at absorbing bad press and turning it into something positive, knowing that attention is the currency of fame. From his beginnings designing clothes with rudeness drawn in big bold letters, through his button-pushing music videos and his high-profile social media bulls, he knows provocation will accumulate “likes”. In fact, his personality relies on constantly surpassing himself in an endless challenge game. In his first video clip out of prison, Gooba, he portrays himself as a rat, both acknowledging his new reputation as a snitch and ignoring his importance. The film traces a timeline of its various phrases and controversies, but no matter what the scandal is, it bounces back, revealing a cold and flippant attitude towards its accusers and those it has betrayed or hurt.
“None of the information we share is new. But with [the film] we give a human face to a lot of people who in the past have just been portrayed as pawns in [6ix9ine’s] story, ”Gandhi says. He interviews neighbors and old friends who knew Hernandez before throwing gang signs at the camera. But the most moving subject of Gandhi is Sara Molina, the former girlfriend and mother of Hernandez’s daughter. Molina paints a damning portrait of her ex-beau as a physically abusive partner and an indifferent father too addicted to fame to care about anyone other than him. “For everyone in the movie, [6ix9ine] is a trigger person. Almost everyone I interviewed who was close to him struggled. It was like they were all talking about a good friend who screwed them up.
An edifying tale of the destructive powers of fame-seeking in the age of social media, Tekashi’s story might be reminiscent of another American villain skilled at media manipulation. “Dave Chappelle said a day later [Donald] Trump was elected we elected an internet troll as our president. I don’t think anyone could imagine at the time that the attention given to him could actually win him over. Gandhi said. “[With Tekashi 6ix9ine], the world of hip-hop and the internet created a troll and gave him fame and fortune. We are all accomplices in this attention-creating economy.
Asked about the objection that some have to the amplification of people who have proven that they do not deserve the spotlight, Gandhi shrugs his shoulders: “I have no answer as to whether the film is good. or bad for society, or good or bad for [6ix9ine’s] career. The only thing I can do is take a topic that is taboo and open it. I think we need to fix the problems instead of canceling them. Why did this happen? If you were someone obsessed with history or someone who regrets being a fan of their own, you could watch the movie and say, “Here’s what happened.” “
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