Last week, the Infamous: The Tekashi 6ix9ine Story podcast premiered. Complex and Spotify partnered to produce the eight-episode docuseries into the controversial and incarcerated rapper. On the first episode, Angie Martinez and guests narrated the life of Daniel Hernandez before he reached infamy. On this week's episode, titled "We On Maddy," the early stages of Tekashi's rap career are chronicled.
It starts out with the rainbow-haired menace being introduced to an aspiring manager who notices Tekashi's potential marketability. While his songs were "trash", his videos were "fire." The edginess of his videos was reflected in his "SoundCloud rap look." The fact that Tekashi was a Mexican-American artist at the same time that Trump was threatening to build The Wall was also thought to be a plus.
It is then explained how Tekashi linking up with Trippie Redd resulted in him signing a record deal. Once he was given full creative freedom, Tekashi began plotting the "GUMMO" music video that launched him into stardom. His posturing with the Nine Trey Gangsters - the reason for him currently being behind bars - is broken down to show how this helped bolster his street cred and rap image.
The next chapter in the story involves Tekashi starting to gain traction, only to be torn down by the exposure of his 2015 child sex crime. The disturbing details of this case are discussed, as are the ways that Tekashi floundered to recover from this setback. His affiliation with DJ Akademiks and advertising of random acts of kindness are described as attempts to rebrand himself, but as we now know, Tekashi only continued to dig himself into a deeper hole.
Listen for yourself below.