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To many a Hip-Hop head, Tekashi 6ix9ine has always been considered a “struggle rapper” regardless of how many times he topped the Billboard charts or how much money he earned with his mediocre records. His lyrical content has always been linked to the struggle and now he has a documentary to match.
According to Yahoo, Hulu quietly released their Tekashi 6ix9ine documentary, ’69: The Saga of Danny Hernandez is the kind of mess you’d expect from a rapper who’s seemingly been all over the place in his young and short career.
Directed by Vikram Gandhi, the documentary delves deep into the somewhat public life of the 24-year-old Brooklyn rapper and though it seems to be informative, it also lacks the kind of inside information that would make documentaries engaging and even explosive.
It’s obvious from the outset that Gandhi can’t get access through the most immediate channels, as the movie begins with an interview outside the Brooklyn apartment interrupted by residents shouting him off the scene. But there’s enough remnants of Hernandez’s story strewn throughout the neighborhood for Gandhi, who narrates the ensuing overview, to pick up the pieces.
While they don’t reveal much new information, the investigation helps clarify the underlying hustle behind the stunts: A first-generation Mexican-American raised by a single mother, surrounded by gang life and socioeconomic anxiety from his childhood, Hernandez’s rapid-fire transformation into Tekashi comes across as a desperate survival act. “’69” unfolds through several dramatic chapter headings to show how an alienated neighborhood kid quickly found his calling in viral stardom. From “Danny the Bodega Boy” through “The Troll,” each passage of the movie provides a clear-eyed account of the way Hernandez found his assaultive purpose.
To be fair, do we even need to know more about Danny Dimes than we already do? He was a burger who became a rap star only to get extorted by his “friends” in exchange for street cred, was ultimately set-up by his crew for not spreading more wealth, and ended up a government informant who snitched on everyone. The end.
Still, we’re sure many a Tekashi fan (or hater) will tune into The Saga of Danny Hernandez just to get more fuel to love or hate the most polarizing rapper the game has ever seen, while Hip-Hop’s most infamous snitch continues to troll everyone in his post-prison life.
Keep in mind that this is just the first of a few documentaries or docuseries set to revolve around the life and times of Tekashi 6ix9ine. So expect more of the same with a few different perspectives about his life. Whether or not they’ll be worth watching remains to be seen. We feel like we’ve seen enough at this point.
Will you be checking out ’69: The Saga of Danny Hernandez on Hulu? Let us know in the comments.
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Photo: Getty
