From battering a woman for seven years to making a sex tape of an underage girl to mocking the bereaved, Tekashi 6ix9ine has proven there are more profound ways to be a rat than testifying against your co-defendants to get a lighter sentence.
His latest bit of ratdom was a rank betrayal of some of his most loyal fans at a concert venue on June 27.
Along with a private jet to fly him from his $1.8 million home in Palm Beach County, Florida, and a luxury RV to transport him from the Houston airport to the arena, Tekashi demanded and received a small army of bodyguards.
“He asked for a lot of security,” concert promoter Henry Castillo told The Daily Beast.
Anybody who reviewed Tekashi’s recent history could understand why.
The rapper would not even be at liberty had he not agreed to testify against the Brooklyn gang members charged along with him in a 2018 racketeering case. His co-defendants went to prison for up to 24 years. His 37-year mandatory minimum sentence was reduced to just two years. It was further cut by four months because his asthma was a risk factor for COVID-19.
And Tekashi was no sooner out of prison last April than he sought to provoke a series of potentially explosive rap feuds that suggested how wrong federal judge Paul Engelmayer was when he said the rapper had “turned a corner.”
“The process of cooperating for you has proven cathartic,” the judge said at the sentencing. “It has brought out the best in you.”
The same week he was released, Tekashi changed his Instagram profile photo to a cartoon figure with his signature multicolored braids lounging on a rat trap with a hunk of cheese. He subsequently went out of his way to raise the ire of everybody from Meek Mill to Snoop Dogg.
“Rat boy,” Snoop responded.
Tekashi mocked Lil Durk after the Chicago rapper’s lifelong friend King Von was murdered in November of last year. A ghoulish video on Tekashi’s Instagram account imagines Von in heaven.
“He really thought ya loved him,” Tekashi wrote.
After Lil Durk’s older brother, DThang, was shot to death outside a Chicago area nightclub in June, Tekashi posted seven laughing emojis.
“@lildurk tell the truth about yo Gang man they really dyin,” Tekashi wrote.
Tekashi also had Instagram exchanges with Chicago rappers Lil Reese and 600 Breezy in February.
“You gonna die when I see you, respectfully…” Breezy informed Tekashi. “And you gotta move around with security ’cause you a b**ch”.
As a result of his incendiary antics, Tekashi got the attention he clearly sought—proving how right Judge Engelmayer had been when he told Tekashi at the sentencing, “Your experience appears to prove the old saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity.”
Tekashi’s first concert on April 23 after his release was at a small venue, Tier nightclub in Orlando, Florida. But he managed to generate lots of press when he leapt onto the crowd from the VIP balcony
“Let’s go viral!” somebody shouted.
That might have seemed a foolhardy move in terms of both COVID-19 and his many enemies, but he was immediately surrounded and escorted to safety by a half-dozen burly men wearing black T-shirts with “SECURITY” stenciled on the back. He was nonetheless jostled more than he may have anticipated, and the concert was cut short.
HIs next appearance was on May 2 at a Miami event that also featured such major stars as Lil Wayne, so there was no way to gauge how many people Tekashi himself drew.
He appeared solo on May 22 at the Payne Arena in Hidalgo County, Texas, and claimed to sell out all 7,000 seats. That was not a true test of whether clicks and likes necessarily translate into big ticket sales, particularly since the area had been so ravaged by COVID-19 that any opportunity to get out was likely to draw a crowd. But Tekashi seized the event to exaggerate and brag and antagonize via Instagram.
“RAPPERS LIE AND SAY THEY GET 200,000 A SHOW 🤣🤣🤣🤣 AND BE PERFORMING INFRONT A DEAD CROWD WITH 700 PEOPLE THERE. 😂😂😂 I ... GET 500,000 DOLLARS A SHOW AND DO ARENAS ‼️‼️‼️ TELL THESE RAPPERS CATCH THE FUCK UPPPPPPPPP”
Karmic irony was soon to follow. He announced his next concert online.
“I’ll be in Houston Texas at at the Humble Civic Center in Houston, Texas this Sunday on June 27. I can’t wait to see all my fans.”
According to a knowledgeable source who has had business dealings with him, Tekashi’s going price for a performance is $200,000, or less than half what he boasts about receiving. He is said to have contracted to appear for that amount in Houston. The promoter Castillo says that Takashi and an associate received $75,000 in a backpack when they arrived at the Humble Civic Center two hours before the concert.
“$70,000 in 100s, $5,000 in 20s,” Castillo told The Daily Beast.
Back 2018, Tekashi was charged with misdemeanor assault in Houston after he choked a 16-year-old who videoed him without permission as he shopped at a mall.
Now, as the concert start time neared, Tekashi again announced that he wanted to go shopping.
“He said, ‘I want to go to the store,’” Castillo recalled. “He said he was going to go visit the store without security.”
Castillo reasoned that it made no sense for Tekashi to have demanded sizable security and then insist upon venturing out unescorted. When challenged, Tekashi admitted that he was looking to flee the concert without performing, Castillo claimed.
The arena holds 15,000, but only 700 people were in attendance, according to Castillo. Tekashi did not say that happened to be the very number that he had mocked other rappers for drawing.
As start time neared, Tekashi suffered a novel kind of stage fright. His fear was apparently not of appearing before a large crowd but before one he deemed too small.
To save Tekashi from the humiliation of a video showing him performing in a largely empty venue, the promoter and his team asked the audience to move up front to the stage. They turned off the lights at the back so nobody would see the thousands of empty seats.
But, as Castillo and others tell it, Tekashi was not satisfied. He headed for the airport in the luxury RV and flew homeward on the private jet that had cost the promoter $30,000 for the round trip.
Tekashi still had the $75,000 in the backpack. Castillo says that Tekashi offered to return it but he declined on his lawyer’s advice, lest anyone think that it settled the matter. The promoter would still be out the cost of the jet and some $80,000 in production expenses and thousands more he says he paid Tekashi up front.
Tekashi subsequently sought to explain his sudden departure by saying that the promoter had stiffed him by failing to come up with the $250,000 the rapper says he was promised.
“You don’t pay, I don’t play,” the TMZ headline read.
Castillo and a former Tekashi business associate told The Daily Beast that the actual fee was $200,000. And Castillo insists that Tekashi—whose attorneys did not respond to calls for comment—was paid everything he was due prior to actually performing. Castillo says that he has reimbursed most of the ticket holders and intends to do so with the rest.
But there remained the fact that the fans Tekashi said he could not wait to see had been left waiting, waiting, waiting only to be denied even a glimpse of him. They included a superfan accompanied by her father, who had bought the tickets for her quinceañera. The thought of the girl heartbroken on what should have been a joyful rite of passage adds yet another dimension to Tekashi’s ratdom.
Back at his sentencing, Tekashi told the judge about visiting a fatally ill youngster named Franklin whose final wish had been to meet the rapper.
“I realized I was not just a kid with rainbow hair and 6ix9ine tattoos,” Tekashi said. “Franklin told me I was hope—hope not just for him, but for the millions of kids who follow me and look up to me.”
Tekashi continued, “What I started to notice was that when people see me, people don't always see Tekashi 6ix9ine, the arrogant, disrespectful person the news wants to portray. Moving forward, I want to use my platform that I have to correct my wrongs. I want to inspire the youth.”
Since then, Tekashi has proceeded to demonstrate that snitching was only one of the ways he is a rat. The judge comes up a sucker.
