The Rap Musicverse: Narrative Warfare and the 6ix9ine Paradox

What happens when an immovable object (street credibility) meets an unstoppable force (a viral attention machine)? This is where the Hip-Hop world finds itself as 6ix9ine after serving a small sentence due to cooperating with the US gov’t is now home early from his prison sentence due to COVID-19 concerns. Now, before we begin, the following are the easiest observations to form on this situation; He’s a rat, he shouldn’t be allowed back in street/gangster rap culture, he needs to atone for his actions as opposed to pandering for sympathy from his followers, etc. I stand behind this 100%. But, the anatomy of how he is this viral machine and its implications is even more critical to me. Also, what does this all mean for the overall state of the culture, the music industry, and especially gangsta rap — 3 distinct entities often used in interchangeable terms. Let’s make a situational assessment.

In its totality, 6ix9ine’s smoke & mirrors return is the biggest threat to rap’s sacred street credibility ideology and all its underlying principles in the entire history of the culture. Full stop. I think it is necessary that we take a strategic and tactical look at how he is pulling this rabbit out of the hat. Now, the first Jedi mind trick he did was establish a “Loyalty” narrative. This narrative strategy is being used as a blindfold on his followers to sidestep any accountability for being a confidential informant. When he decided to become a gang member, he made an implicit pact and that pact was to be upheld by the standards and governance of the underworld (streets/code of the streets). Part of those standards says that despite any wrong being done to you, and as an invested member of the street life, you abdicate your rights and due process of the “civilian world”. So, even if you were backstabbed by your own circle in the underworld, and despite any perceived betrayal you may have experienced, you still can’t use civilian world moral tools to remove yourself from upholding your underworld pacts, and that’s exactly what he is doing (“what would you do if they try to kill you, steal from you”, etc). He is grabbing the concept of loyalty from the civilian world, and bringing it down to the underworld as cover fire for his actions. Repercussions for any perceived betrayals (disloyalty is his argument) in the underworld, must take place only, in and with underworld tools.

Now, under an older era (pre-social media and 15yrs ago), 6ix9ine would’ve been strategically silenced and not have the ability to return back to the culture. He would’ve been frozen out of the major Hip-Hop outlets, and subsequently, wouldn’t have had a platform to control his narrative. Which now brings us to the 4 factors at the moment that makes 6ix9ine so effective at this dangerous cloak and dagger game:

1. He went to jail with 15 million followers and has been able to recruit 6+ million more since he’s been out. Which signals that most of his followers (old & new) are ambivalent to street code culture deep down. (No surprise)
2. Also, he understands social media and all its viral potentialities better than any other artist. (again, no surprise).
3. Next, he has a modern & hackers intuition on how to make content (songs, videos, skits, commentary, interviews, etc) that GO, he knows how to make “hit content” on command. His toolkit only amplifies under a global pandemic where everyone is predominantly inside. (yep, still not a surprise based on his track record)
4. Here is the biggest surprise, his ability to acquire support from high-status individuals who are not afraid to lend their brand and followers to his narrative mission (Akon, Nicki Minaj?). Also, even more pervasive, there’s silent support. There are people who publicly deride him, but quietly enjoy, click, view, and/or stream his offerings. Similar to cheering on the malevolent criminal at the end of the movie, but publicly hating him in public. Is there a secret, double-faced resistance bubbling from the bottom of the culture? If there is, this private resistance phenomenon is called preference falsification and was later identified to be a factor during the 2016 presidential campaign with Donald Trump. People succumbed to peer pressure publicly, and said all the right things to distance themselves from Trump, but, privately, voted for him en masse. So, with 6ix9ine sensing his growing and resilient fandom, which was gauged and polled in his absence, it has him saying implicitly to everyone, “Yes, I snitched. Yes, I ratted. But I know how America works, if I make another hit you guys will forgive me (eventually). So I am going to push back on the entire rap game who is dissing me for snitching & bet on myself because I can create viral content at scale and the music & social music industry won’t be able to ignore me. Also, I have 21+ million followers and their sympathy, with more converts who join me every day. I have nothing else to lose, besides my life as a free man, and I am willing to risk it”.
   So, this puts Hip-Hop in a precarious position, on the surface people in Hip-Hop may think, “ignore him and he’ll go away, starve him of the attention he wants”. But something dangerous can happen if you do so, he may get stronger and spread his sympathy narrative and the collective silence can be interpreted as weakness which then gives him more opportunity to get new supporters and convert others who were against him. A true paradox. Outlets are desperate for clicks, they have a job to do as being part of the music industry complex, thus, predictably, they do not follow street code guidelines. Their GPS follows ad-dollars and profit margins.

Which brings us to the individual, since the institutions are compromised, and one of the first detractors of 6ix9ine was Meek Mill. Meek is the #1 street artist (max street credibility with max sales and industry power) in all of Hip-Hop. 6ix9ine’s cultural position is now diametrically opposite to Meek and is a direct threat to the street code narrative that Meek champions and embodies. Why? Because the narrative of street culture can’t have a renegade dilute the brand on a global scale, it hurts everyone and has negative long term effects. The simulation can’t be greater than reality. So this finds Meek in a superhero-like position to defeat an evil villain. A true Batman vs the Joker type of battle. At first glance, he’s the only rapper that can and damage his comeback. However, this can’t be a single-player mission. It needs a mixture of veterans ( like Snoop and G-herbo recently) and, especially, younger artists ( think Kodak Black, Lil Baby, NBA YoungBoy, etc) to join the chorus of pushback. Whoever is closer to the youth, has the most influence and relevance. It’s going to take a group effort. Because when it’s a single attack, he leans on the the “Joker” theme and just trolls against anyone’s possible hidden weaknesses which waters down their attack against him and if trolling isn’t enough, he uses “success contests” to push back (record sales comparisons, etc). Speaking of record sales, what does it mean when he accuses Billboard of chart manipulation and they actually respond back to him in an extensive report defending themselves? It means we have reached an early tipping point where his viral growth and influence with a young and animated group of fans is intimidating to the world’s chart recorder to say the least. Remember, Billboard loves 6ix9ine, he champions the story of being on the charts, “I’m 11 for 11 on Billboard”, etc. They love this. As most older and veteran artists have grown jaded with Billboard, 6ix9ine has historically put them on a pedestal to a crop of new listeners (and artists) who now have new goals to aspire to be listed on its storied chart. The narrative train has to chug along.

Prediction time. What can we expect for the foreseeable future? Here are 3 scenarios we can expect for the rest of the pandemic.

1. 6ix9ine will divide Hip-Hop into two alternate realities. One with his sympathizers and one without. (very Trump-like)
2. There will be a narrative war to convert fan, high-status individuals and media support from each side.
3. Whoever wins the narrative warfare during the rest of the pandemic will win post the pandemic era. However, the pandemic is like a handicap match because everyone has to live on social media, which is 6ix9ine’s home turf.

If the street credibility faction wins, 6ix9ine’s brand will slowly evanesce as street artists will consistently resist his narrative, diss him on stage ( festivals, clubs, awards, etc) and mock him for not being able to perform, be outside, do public video shoots, etc. Alternatively, if 6ix9ine, the viral attention machine, is able to recruit more high-value supporters and continues to release songs/videos that perform virally well, he maybe is able to do the unthinkable and slowly go outside to perform. Little by little, in certain markets (especially internationally) his presence will start to be normalized and in a few years people will start to tolerate and then accept his presence. We’ve seen prior reclamation examples of this happening in Hip-Hop (albeit with less serious infractions) before. Also, the narrative, code of the streets, has already been suffering critical blows (perhaps that video was a foreshadow) and this 6ix9ine situation can be in a line of side effects. One thing for sure, the next 16 months will be the most intense narrative war in the history of Hip-Hop.