6ix9ine Bio

In the short time he was on the scene, the rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine attracted the attention of America with an escalating series of provocations and controversies. He became hip-hop's troll prince, a master at sparking outrage , and then converting it into a raging popularity. This is a strategy that's been utilized beforefor example, 50 Cent, for example, dissed his way to rap's throne in the 2000s early on- but the speed at which 6ix9ine found himself with an audience of millions only have occurred in the era of smartphones. He didn't need to be liked; all you needed to do was to have an opinion. "He is the Donald Trump of the music industry," Elliot Grainge, the director of Tekashi's label 10K Projects, told me this summer. "We analyze the data and find that 80 percent of the comments are hate. However, if we show you the analytics on the people who write hateful comments, it's those who attend the shows and buy the T-shirts!" The "Gummo" video set Hernandez onto three different trajectories -- one that brought him fame; one that made him notorious and another that could end his career. "Gummo," powered by the bizarre, unforgettable 6ix9ine image, was an internet sensation that went platinum in just two months. This popularity spike led to the disclosure of Hernandez's prefame story. He pleaded guilty to child-sex-related charges, and this trial will be a turning point for Hernandez. His first meeting with Kifano Jordan (a.k.a. "Shotti," that would be the most significant part of that summer day in Brooklyn. Shotti was said to be a member of the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods which is one of the subsets of the violent prison gang founded in the New York's Rikers Island jail in 1993. He created the horde of menacing young men in the video, and later in the future, he became Tekashi's official manager. Authorities have since claimed that he had threatened his safety. People who knew Hernandez well say that he was never associated with gangs prior to meeting Shotti. In the 12 months later, after that video shoot in Brooklyn, Hernandez would be in a prison cell, facing 32 years to life for charges that included the attempted murder of a man with an armed weapon.