Born Daniel Hernandez in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the 21-year-old rapper is hip-hop’s newest and loudest up-and-coming rapper, with his rainbow hair, skittles teeth, and countless “69” face tattoos, Tekashi 6ix9ine is certainly the genre’s strangest act yet.

Tekashi’s freshman album “Day 69” has debuted No. 3 on the top R&B/Hip-Hop Billboard in its first week release. “Day 69” has moved over 55,000 units just under Post Malone’s album “Psycho,” according to Billboards.com.

“Day 69” is nothing new to Tekashi fans, it brings the same eerie synthesizers, 808 drums, and “SCUMGANG!” intro that his debut single “Gummo” perpetuated. “Gummo” was released on Youtube in Oct. 2017 and has already reached over 140 million views.

The album consist of 11 songs, although two of them are “Gummo” just the last track being a remix featuring “Offset” from the infamous “Migos,” which is never a good sign for an album to have repeated tracks.

The songs “Billy” and “Kooda” were released on “WorldStarHipHop” Youtube channel last month as teasers for the album, unfortunately they only proved that 6ix9ine gave it his all in the debut single.

“Keke” showed some potential with a melodic guitar intro, but seconds in it gave way to the monotonous theme of the album that seems to be scream, curse, scream, gunshots.   

“When I make music I don’t have any thoughts,”  Tekashi said in an interview with XXL Magazine. “I just be angry as f**k. I feel like that’s when I make my best music.”

But yet there is a reason for his success and incredibly large audience, and it’s his repetitive and depraved lyrics about sex, drugs, and murdering that makes Tekashi’s heavy metal flow ring in your ears, and if that doesn’t do it, the many machine gun sound effects definitely will.

Takeshi, like most young hip-hop artists today, such as Post Malone, Lil Pump, and Travis Scott, have come from an era of rap music called “Trap,” a slang term that dates back to the ‘90s referring to “Trap house,” a place where drugs and guns, among other things, are sold.

The difference between other “Trap” artists and Tekashi is he doesn’t just talk about about living the lifestyle. He displays his gang affiliation on his social media, mainly on his instagram “6ix9ine_” where he is constantly seen holding guns and threatening his “haters.”

In most of Tekashi’s music videos, he seems to have a heavy gang affiliation with the Los Angeles street gang “Bloods,” considering all the red sweatshirts being worn and red bandanas waving in the air. But when asked about his affiliation in an interview by All Urban Central, Tekashi said “just because you see me with mad Blood n***as doesn’t mean I’m Blood, just because you see me with mad Crip n***as doesn’t mean I’m Crip. I f**k with both.” Afterwards, he proceeded to throw large amounts of money on the floor saying, “Y’all need to get some money, y’all too broke.”

There’s are a lot of controversies surrounding the rapper, but none are more disturbing than his statutory rape case that occurred Feb. 21, 2015. Tekashi was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl when he was 18, although the rapper claims he was 17 at the time. Yet, he still pleaded guilty to the use of a child in a sexual performance on Oct. 20, 2015 according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

“I don’t know her exact age, I think she was 14 or some s**t like that,” Tekashi said in an interview, when recounting his interrogation.

It’s needless to say Tekashi 6ix9ine is, like his music, not suitable for all ages. His over-the-top personality has skyrocketed him to the top of the charts. But will his music be a passing fad, or a real trademark for this generation? His fans say ‘yes,’ critics say ‘no.’ One thing’s for sure, Tekashi is not the rapper we need, but the rapper we deserve.

Rudy Guijarro can be reached at [email protected]