Inside the Slovak rap label that gave the polarizing rapper his career then watched him kill it.
Tekashi 6ix9ine
This article was originally published in April 2019.
Its being republished today as Tekashi 6ix9inetestifies against his former associatesin court.
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In Slovakia, when some guests come, we invite them on a shot.
You want a shot?
I say yes and stemmed bubble glasses appear, as does a clear bottle of Slivovica.
This particular batch was fermented at home, by the Slovak rap star Dalybs father.
Okay, its disgusting.
But they seem to know that.
They just want me to feel at home.
they shout as I drink.
Yaksha, 33, is, effectively, Bratislavas Sean Puffy Combs.
Armed with shouty street rap and rainbow-colored hair anda Jigsaw Jesus piece, he was a trollish cartoon villain.
It feels like 6ix9ine was dreamt up by an overheated viral hive mind.
And its true hed never exist without the internet.
But it didnt happen the way we think.
One of 6ix9ines earliest tracks was a guest appearance on Dalybs group Haha Crews Rolling Stones.
he shouts on the track.
The first time he left New York was to come here.
His first-ever live show was at the Bratislava club Babylon.
They really introduced [6ix9ine] to what it is to be, like, a rapper and shit.
Before that, we werent doing shit.
Its also a muted kind of tragedy.
And they are unable to square that reality with their own.
He fell in love with it here, Adam, Yakshas right-hand man and semi-translator, tells me.
He said, Heres fresh air!
This is not Bushwick!
It would be his European base.
But I believe this plan still will be.
He grew up skating with kids who loved NOFX.
Hey, bro, you must listen to punk-rock music, they told him.
I said, Fuck off!
Wu-Tang is way better!
Eventually, he realized he didnt actually want to be a performer.
Every big artist here, its some classic shit, he says.
You must be from the street and everything is hard.
Yaksha had a personal revelation: I like more New Wave rap, yeah?
New Wave is his term for what Americans might callSoundCloud rap.
For everyone in Slovak and Czech Republic, to [hear] New Wave here?
Then Yaksha discovered Haha Crew, a goofy trio from Kosice.
It was really controversial in Slovakia.
A lot of people hated them.
One group coming in with a song about Givenchy?
Yaksha considers it the origin point for modern Slovak rap music.
He feels that everyone now owes a debt to Haha Crew that nothing has been the same since.
I heard it and I said, Oh fuck.
With Haha Crew as his marquee act, he started building what would become FCK THEM.
For a few years he made no money, funding the operation through marketing and streetwear side hustles.
Touching down in Bratislava, artists would be hesitant at first.
Invariably, hed hear references to a certain torture-porn classic set in the Slovak capital.
I said, Bro, its a fucking movie!
This is not from reality!
In the U.S., its people chilling with phones.
In Slovakia, people make really big mosh pits.
Whole show, everybody fighting!
6ix9ine found his way to Bratislava via YouTube analytics.
The reason: Dalyb had posted it on his Facebook page.
And a lot of people wrote him, You must make music only with Haha Crew.
For a couple of years after Rolling Stones, FCK THEM and 6ix9ine retreated back into their own worlds.
Then in 2016, on a long trip to New York, Yaksha met 6ix9ine for the first time.
He [DMd] me every day about meeting, Yaksha says.
(The videos are now, respectively, at over 100 million and over 300 million views.)
From Barcelona to Paris to Kiev, FCK THEM continued to put on shows for 6ix9ine.
Adam: He didnt have socks!
He didnt have underwear!
Yaksha: He come to my apartment and ask me, do you have some boxers I can wear?
Adam: That night we went to the mall, just shopping for underwear.
The crew remembers 6ix9ine FaceTiming his daughter three or four times a day.
They insist he was a really good father, but maybe not a good partner.
And I understood it was normal.
We know him as the guy sitting quietly, eating fruit, Adam says.
Hes currently in an undisclosed federal prison awaiting sentencing.
I didnt like this guy from day one, yeah?
I told all crew around 6ix9ine, I dont believe this guy Shotti.
Its really hard to believe those charges, he continues.
Its kind of a whole different guy.
I dont know if something changed in the U.S.
Partially, it feels like theyre willfully ignoring the facts, or pining for some alternate-reality version of events.
If only theyd managed to keep him in Bratislava, away from negative influence … People like you like humble artist and genius.
You changed into classic rapper.
I was thinking that the people around him came with the fame.
They will be for a few weeks, a few months, and theyll go away.
Here in Europe, it was visible it had a good influence on him.
He was acting differently.
In a good way.
His big mistake he liked the attention of the gang.
He liked the attention of the people selling heroin, shooting people.
He trolled his way into the jail.
Legally, though, it doesnt matter much if 6ix9ine was playacting.
Meanwhile, the allegations of abuse are much harder to explain away.
What if you knew an artist had committed domestic abuse?
Would you continue working with them?
Yaksha doesnt directly answer the question.
I also understand that he … must reckon with the consequences.
Of course I agree with this, and its the right thing.
After a while, we leave the FCK THEM HQ for the FCK THEM studio.
We take Yakshas Audi up to a ritzy neighborhood overlooking the city below.
Its the former Korean embassy.
Gleb is full of good lines.
They dont wear a uniform but theyre always the same: fat, with a stupid face.
We pop into the studio, an unadorned side room with a bathtub full of unused soundproofing foam.
Gleb, fueled on nothing but energy drinks and Horalky wafers, shouts, BPM up!
Gleb is one of FCK THEMs biggest local stars.
But while they cultivate their local talent, they also have eyes elsewhere.
Yakshas current high-priority focus is the New York rapper Snubbs.
But Yaksha has even bigger international aspirations for FCK THEM.
He wants to use it to build FCK THEM U.K. and FCK THEM ASIA.
Flipping through his in-box, he shows me a sampling: This is the first albino female to rap.
FCK THEMs current big project is a documentary feature on 6ix9ine.
I want to show people 6ix9ine likeartist, Yaksha says, and how we know him the humble guy.
And we want to show the genius part about him.
But it should not be romantic, like, hes the good hero.
We dont want to make a story that nobody believes.
Everything should be true, in the good way we experienced it.
The last time Yaksha spoke to 6ix9ine was in New York, a few months ago.
Okay, hes really rich, so hes in jail but he has a phone.
6ix9ine seemed okay, though, he recalls.
Hes doing good, Yaksha says.
Nobody know what actually is happening.
