[introImage id=143286 caption=”Source: Instagram @6ix9ine_”]
6ix9ine (AKA Teka$hi69) is one of the artists with the most buzz behind his name in hip-hop today. The 21 year-old Brooklyn native has made an astronomical rise in the music industry, with numbers to back it up. His breakout single, “Gummo” peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified platinum by the RIAA. In his interview with the Breakfast Club, he states that every song that he’s released has made it to the Billboard charts.
His flashy aesthetic and hyper-aggressive style of music has made him a subject of controversy, with his past legal troubles only adding to the controversial nature of the rapper. In the early stages of his music career, 6ix9ine repped the group SCUM GANG. SCUM stands for Society Can’t Understand Me, which is nearly a testament to the outsider persona he has come to embody in the media today.
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Recently, 6ix9ine visited the Dominican Republic for a music video shoot, where he shared a revelation he had during his visit via Instagram. If you haven’t seen the post, check it out below.
A day after he posted that video, he posted a photo of him hugging a woman with a powerful caption that not only had a heartfelt sentiment, but also revealed some information about what “69” means to him.
Here’s the caption of the photo:
“I never lost sense of where I came from. That’s what makes me 69. The true meaning of 69 is just because you’re right doesn’t mean I’m wrong YOU JUST HAVENT SEEN LIFE FROM MY PERSPECTIVE. Turn the 6 upside down it’s 9 but remains the same in a different perspective. Open your mind and heart”
6ix9ine hasn’t spoken much about the significance of the numbers to him in the past, so this is big news to anyone who’s had questions about it. He’s gone on record to say that “69” represents a lifestyle, but not much else. His explanation on the significance of the number may very well have created more questions than it has answered for his fans.
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Here comes some speculation.
Before trying to disambiguate his name, one should first consider the type of life 6ix9ine had before the fame. On top of growing up poor, he lost his father at the age of 13, around the age he dropped out of school. In an Open Space interview with Mass Appeal, 6ix9ine says he saw his father as a hero and thought of him as invincible, so when he passed, 6ix9ine says it made him rebel. “I don’t want to be a superhero,” he says. “I want to be a villain; villains never die, superheroes always die”.
When looking at the number 69, it nearly looks like the yin yang symbol, and perhaps this is a theme at play in the nomenclature of 6ix9ine. If you see him speak about his father, it’s not hard to tell that he had a substantial amount of reverence for his father’s heroic qualities, but 6ix9ine’s adoption of the “villain” identity could be considered as a reason he’s so successful today. Just listen to his smash hit, “Gummo”: it’s not exactly gospel rap. He even has a tattoo of Jigsaw on his face, the villain from the horror movie series Saw.
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Even if 6ix9ine has embraced villainy to a certain extent, his recent post from the Dominican Republic illustrates the (possible) duality that makes him “69”. The first sentence of the post’s caption, “I never lost sense of where I came from”, could be in reference to his early life in poverty, but could also refer to the time when he still lived with and looked up to his heroic father. The clip of him handing out hundred dollar bills to Dominican kids doesn’t exactly fit with the identity of a villain he described in the 2017 interview, so perhaps virtues learned from his father were never completely lost to him after all.
When 6ix9ine’s life was turned upside down by the loss of his father, so too might have his perspective on the world. This could possibly be what 6ix9ine is referring to in the rest of his caption. Just in the same way that both sides of yin and yang are interdependent, the world may need villains as well as heroes.
At the end of the day, it would be hard to argue that any human is purely good or evil, especially in today’s modern age. It seems as though 6ix9ine might be aware of this, and he might be dropping subtle hints for the ones that are paying attention… But that may not be many, as his affiliation with SCUM GANG implied that society can’t understand him. What do you think 69 means? Let us know in the comments below, and be sure to SHARE this article!
