For those of you who have been keeping up with the Tekashi 6ix9ine Infamous podcast, as hosted by Angie Martinez, it would appear that the ongoing tale has reached its conclusion. A rather open-ended one at that, given the fact that few can predict what might occur following his release from prison on August 2nd. In any case, the eighth and final episode has arrived, kicking off at the rapper’s widely publicized sentencing trial, which found him once again reunited with his estranged biological father.

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Given that 6ix9ine’s decision to cooperate with authorities has all but branded him a “snitch,” thus rendering him an enemy of the rap-game at large, it’s unclear as to whether he’ll be able to safely resume his career where it left off. Consider that during his volatile rise into breakout superstardom, the rainbow wonder made enemies of veterans and newcomers alike, even calling out the legendary Ludacris with a flagrantly disrespectful tone. Yet the majority of his fanbase might not care about street codes and long-respected gang dynamics, having gravitated toward 6ix9ine on the basis of antics alone. Will they remain loyal now that their seemingly fearless hero underwent such a public character shift?

Should you be interested in exploring such discussions in greater detail, check out the final episode of Infamous: The Tekashi 6ix9ine Story below. And sound off in the comments – how do you expect his return to the game to be received? Should he even attempt to revive his musical career, or should safety be his foremost priority? 

In the midst of a full-scale press tour, 50 Cent took a moment to chop it up with Angie Martinez, who has recently been killing it as the host of Infamous: The Tekashi 6ix9ine Story. Given their shared fascination with the young rapper, it was only a matter of time (55-minute mark) before the topic of 6ix9ine was raised. 

When asked whether 6ix9ine can still thrive in music after everything that transpired, Fif seems convinced that the kid will be alright. “There’s nothing that will stop him from selling records,” he states, reasoning that many of the more vocal detractors haven’t paid for music in years. “They’re not the music-buying audience. Middle America has kids that understand that you didn’t support people who were gonna hurt your mom. That you didn’t support people who were going to hurt you. They do try to understand the energy that goes on it and all the terminologies and all that stuff. But they do understand that part.”

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“They’re going, ‘was I supposed to keep it real and do 40 years for the dudes who were gonna do something to my mother and they was actually plotting to really hurt me?’ To the kids, they don’t understand it. They don’t understand the street stuff.” 50, ever in the know, also alludes that the man backing 6ix9ine, Lucian Grainge, will not allow the rainbow wonder to fail. “That’s the machine, Ang. That’s the big machine.” He also reveals that 6ix9ine’s court date set his record label back $280k.  “They had a full music video set up for him to shoot. Full production to shoot the video to a song they recorded. With all the energy around him being released, if you don’t hear anything until a song surfaces? Every kid would have been saying ‘let me see what he said.’ It would have went so far.'” 

“He’ll have the same fear 2Pac expressed that his fear was,” he continues. “He expressed that he would get killed by a random nobody. That’s who Tekashi has to be worried about as far as gang activity. As far as the energy going on outside.” Angie laughs, joking that Fif would still do a documentary if that happened. “Absolutely,” he maintains, sporting a devilish grin. “This is hip-hop culture we’re documenting. Somebody has to cover it.”

Two unlikely foes who had a brief beef last year were Lakeith Stanfield and Charlamagne Tha God. In November, Lakeith voiced his frustrations with black media outlets that he considered to be “anti-black” because of what and how they report. Charlamagne would later make Lakeith “Donkey of the Day” on The Breakfast Club, and some believed that Lakeith dissed Charlamagne in a song he released. The exchange was over as quickly as it began, and Lakeith recently shared that he has no gripes with the radio host.

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“Nah, we ain’t spoken. It ain’t really no problem,” said Lakeith in an interview with Angie Martinez. “I just say what I feel and sometimes people feel different and they got they opinions and platforms just like I got mine. And sometimes they diverge and go in different places but it’d be silly to have a problem.” Angie wanted to know how they can reconcile their differences.

“I don’t really know what there is to mend, I’m good,” Lakeith said with a laugh. “If he got some kind of issue, tell him that we can talk together and we’ll figure that out, but other than that, I ain’t got no issues whatsoever. Don’t even make sense to have issues about that. We both want the same thing. We just want each other to be great and we want all black people to be great and fill the space. I think that’s what’s trying to come out but sometimes it comes out in messed up ways.”

Angie mentioned that some things are often lost in translation because of social media. Lakeith added, “We also gotta have integrity on how we’re reporting and how we frame things. Have responsibility for like, the honesty and truth and integrity in things. Or, we can be sloppy. You got the decision to make on your platform.”

Watch Issa Rae and Lakeith Standfield’s interview with Angie Martinez below.

People were perplexed when news broke that Pop Smoke had been arrested for allegedly stealing a vehicle. In January, the New York City rapper was reportedly taken into custody at the airport as he was making his way to the City of Lights for Paris Fashion Week. Federal agents claim that the rapper borrowed a Rolls-Royce Wraith for a music video in November 2019. The owner of the car, in turn, would receive VIP treatment at one of Pop Smoke’s concerts, but according to authorities, the owner claims he never received his car back. It was finally tracked down in Arizona. 

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Pop Smoke recently sat down with Angie Martinez at Hot 97 to talk about his latest release, Meet the Woo 2. While there, Angie asked about the rapper’s recent run-in with the law. “Foolishness. I’ll tell you later,” the rapper said. “But just know… You know, it’s cap. We gon’ keep it like that.” He may not have said much about the ongoing investigation, but Pop Smoke did have a few words of wisdom for other young men such as himself who are making money in the industry.

“I’m a give a message to my young n*ggas,” he began. “N*ggas like us, coming where we come from, we can’t afford to f*ck up. We can’t afford to slip up. Make no mistakes, you heard, because they watchin’ and they want us to. We got all odds against us. And fake n*ggas be winnin’ sometimes. So, if you wanna succeed, you can’t f*ck up. You ain’t got no space for it. You can’t afford it.” Watch his full interview below.

Once upon a time, The Lox was signed to Bad Boy Records. Jadakiss, Sheek Louch, and Styles P would grow disenchanted with their deal because their style wasn’t meshing well with Bad Boy’s sound, but parting ways was easier said than done. Jadakiss recently revealed that Diddy decided to let them go after a heated exchange resulted in Styles P throwing a chair at the mogul, but the group was still at odds with Puff over their publishing. 

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Back in 2005, The Lox visited Hot 97 and chatted with Angie Martinez about their gripes with Diddy. The group talked about signing over most of their publishing to the Bad Boy founder when they inked their contracts, and things took a turn when Diddy called the station to discuss their concerns. An angry Jadakiss told Diddy he’d throw a refrigerator at him, but thankfully, no one has had furniture tossed their way.

Recently, former Bad Boy rapper Mase took to Instagram to publicly call out Diddy for not selling him his publishing. He said that Diddy talks about “black excellence,” but when Mase approached Diddy with $2 million, Diddy allegedly rejected the offer because someone else was interested. Diddy has yet to respond to the allegations, but MRECK TV caught up with Jadakiss to get the rapper’s thoughts on Mase’s beef with Diddy.

“I think Mase got a good enough relationship, he can go talk to Diddy,” Jadakiss said. “The way we did it on the radio with Angie [Martinez], that was different. We was young kids. We ain’t understand business the way we do now, being business owners and fathers and grown men about it. Mase gotta better relationship with Diddy than we actually had, so he can go talk to him.”

“In his defense, I don’t know how it was going down so he’s doing what he gotta do,” the rapper added. “I just know I would handle it different at this point in life. When we did the whole ‘Let The Lox Go’ campaign we was still teenagers. Twenty-years-old, early twenties. Everybody’s grown men known and they know right from wrong… You can go talk to a man as a man and handle your differences, settle your differences without this foolishness or without social media.” Check it out below.

Pop Smoke and Casanova had a very short-lived feud a few weeks ago. What was more shocking is that after taunting Cas, he got arrested on federal charges for allegedly transporting a stolen vehicle across interstate lines. In a recent interview with Angie Martinez, he not only called the situation itself “cap” but he explained that the feud between himself and Casanova was turned into something even bigger due to the power of the Internet.

Just to quickly recap, Pop Smoke initially fired shots at Casanova, calling the fellow Brooklynite “Trashanova” while the lyrics in “Christopher Walking” appear to taunt Cas. The two later squashed their beef days later and had dinner together. But Pop Smoke explained that it was never anything to begin with.

“People just took that and dragged that out,” he told Angie. “‘Cause if you know me, then you know I’m really real in real life. If it’s beef, we not gonna go on the Internet… Somebody might get hurt. You don’t want to advertise something like that.” He added that the whole thing was really just a “misunderstanding.”

Pop Smoke just released his debut album today, Meet The Woo Vol. 2. The project includes appearances from Quavo, Fivio Foreign, Lil Tjay, and more. Shockingly, the collaboration that he seems to have in the cut with Meek Mill did not make the final cut of the project. Peep the interview below. 

Let Angie Martinez be your guide. Today, the first episode of Infamous: The Tekashi 6ix9ine Story has hit Spotify, providing a thorough deep dive into the Rainbow Wonder’s tumultuous journey. Painting the young rapper as a “kid from Brooklyn trying to make it by any means necessary,” the episode begins in medias res with his second Breakfast Club interview. An interview many see as the beginning of the end. And yet, despite having fired his entire team the day before, he still considered himself to be the “King Of New York.” Brazen enough to call out his entire team, a team made up of Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods, live on the airwaves.

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Effectively pieced together through well-structured clips, Martinez breaks down the narrative with experienced authority. She reminds the masses that two days after the fateful Breakfast Club interview, Teskahi was arrested on RICO charges, effectively ending his volatile momentum. And while his transition from chart-topper to informant will likely be covered at length, the episode effectively begins by detailing his “scrappy origin.” Describing a quiet Bushwick come-up, the local tattoo artist responsible for Tekashi’s first 6ix9ine ink describes the neighborhood as essentially abandoned. 

“I had heard a lot of stories about how his life was challenging from early on,” says Martinez. “That his stomach would hurt from being so hungry. He’d wear sneakers his mom wore in the garbage.” She explains that Hernandez got vulnerable with her during an interview, where he said his biological father was murdered at the age of 13. “I was really dying,” said 6ix9ine. “I wasn’t eating. I didn’t shower for two months. I would eat Mike & Ikes and drink bottles of water.” Angie Martinez proceeds to wonder if further mental health care would have prevented 6ix9ine from his own self-destruction, especially given the untreated trauma experienced at a young age.

For more deep dive into the sordid tale, be sure to check out the full episode below, as presented by Spotify and Complex. 

The rise and fall of Tekashi 6ix9ine might be one of the greatest cautionary tales in social media culture in recent times. The rapper skyrocketed to fame in a matter of weeks. Within six months, he was the self-described “hottest artist in the world” with co-signs from artists like Kanye West and Nicki Minaj, as well as several Billboard-charting records to his name that hit the top 40.

Now that the rapper’s trial has ended and he was officially sentenced to 24 months behind bars with time serves, Spotify and Complex have teamed up to release their new trailer for Infamous: The Tekashi 6ix9ine Story podcast. Sharing the trailer, Angie Martinez narrates his rise to stardom from Danny Hernandez, deli meat clerk to the federal case involving the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods. The podcast will include exclusive interviews and an in-depth look into his life from some people that knew him or had some sort of involvement with him. 

In related news, the rapper recently had his request to do the rest of his bid in home confinement denied. After taking the stand, the rapper compromised his own safety and asked the judge if he can finish the remainder of his sentence in home confinement. Due to the severity of his crimes, the judge made it clear that 6ix9ine will remain in jail.

Peep the trailer for Infamous: The Tekashi 6ix9ine story below.

Late last month, Angie Martinez announced that she would be returning to work after taking two months off for physical therapy. The famed radio host was in a serious car accident in early November, and while she shared the extent of her injuries, she hadn't spoken out about the details of her accident until now.

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"I can't say too much because insurance is still dealing with stuff," she said. "I was swerving out of the way to miss another car and I flew over a wall. It was like a 10-foot wall. The car dropped straight down. Luckily I had my seatbelt on, it was the daytime." Her co-host couldn't believe it. "Like Dukes of Hazard in the air. Flew down, straight down into some trees."

Emergency responders had to cut the trees to get her out of the wreckage. "So, when I tell you it's like a miracle... God is amazing," she continued. "I've been the past two months in recovery doing physical therapy, rehab." When asked what the hardest part of therapy was, Angie admitted every day is still hard for her. "That's the thing, you get a little better... Anyway, I had a fractured vertebra, shattered the vertebra in one part. So they had to put something in my back [to put it back together]." She joked that when she travels through airport security she isn't sure if she's going to set off the alarm.

While physical therapy is still tough, Angie said that it's something that she's grateful for because it's better than the alternative. "I'm not here for that!" she stated. Check out her clip below.

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She answered all your questions about what happened with her accident & her recovery.

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In 2020, Big Sean is slated to deliver his fifth studio album which is rumored to drop sometime this month. The Detroit rapper has been sharing bits about his forthcoming project for months, especially following the life-transformation that has him feeling as if he’s creating the best music of his career.

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“When you have the mentality that you gotta stay hungry, gotta stay on people’s necks, gotta stay hot and all of that, you kinda neglect yourself a little bit,” the rapper recently told Angie Martinez. “I did that for like, years and years and years and years and then all of a sudden it really started catching up with me and I realized, man, I can’t even deliver my best if I’m not nowhere close to my best. So, I just needed to take some time for myself.”

In a reflective New Year’s post, Big Sean shared that 2020 is about to be a crazy year. “Thank u for a decade that changed my life,” he began. “Through the the ups n downs I managed to do the impossible where I’m from n became one of the top selling hip hop artists of the decade, 52 million records sold n counting, ain’t even dropped no project in the last couple years. Like I said on my 1st album ‘never made da crowds fans, I made them all fam’. N I apologize for the distance n lack of communication but life is life. 2020 we back goin hard tho, f*ck all dat otha sh*t ??.” Are you ready for the Sean Don takeover?