If you are an avid hip-hop listener, you have probably heard of the infamous rainbow-colored hair prince of trolls, aka. It’s F*ckin’ Treywey. Now, there is a three-part docu-series titled, SUPERVILLAIN, which takes viewers through the making of profiling and notorious hip-hop artist, Tekashi 6ix9ine.
“SUPERVILLAIN” has been released in association with SHOWTIME, as it examines the complicated relationships between celebrities, celebrity culture, and the media as a testament to our times and how society continues to benefit from toxic culture. Narrated by Giancarlo Esposito (Better Call Saul, The Mandalorian), a rapper and rapper-turned-deli clerk in New York City, Daniel Hernandez, came up with his rap persona as the ruthless and tattooed Tekashi 6ix9ine became a popular face among Generation Z. As well as an exclusive post-prison interview with 6ix9ine following his release last year, this complex musical collaboration tells the truest story the new generation can tell about social media, influence, and the human condition, touching upon everything from loneliness to influence, and so much more…
Director Karam Gill takes viewers through the different angles of Tekashi 6ix9ine’s life, from his affiliation with the Nine Trey Bloods, to landing spots on numerous music charts, including Billboard at some points of his music “career”. He believes that “SUPERVILLAN” is worth people’s time and worth watching because, for the first time in human history, we are living in a world where manufactured personas are taking the world by storm.
“With pop culture, it’s so important that people start to realize that not all celebrities are fully authentic,” Karam says. “There are tons of figures that are incredible and super authentic who stand for great things and are just overall wonderful people. And then you get these people that create personas and use the platforms for inauthentic reasons. Look at the Kardashians, for example. It’s important to look at this concept of manufactured celebrity and understand it because if we don’t understand these things and not study the villains of society, we can’t really evolve as a society.”
He also adds that society’s villains indicate more about the size, as they constantly show us who we are becoming while holding a mirror to us.
“If you look at films like “The Joker”, that was the same approach with the creation, “Supervillains”, where the purpose was not to discern whether or not, the Joker is, or in this stance 6ix9ine, a good or bad person, any title “Supervillain” would be answered immediately,” Karam continues. “The purpose of this project is to really deconstruct it and understand how society allows this to happen, right. It goes into this and how we allowed someone to transform into this person.”
Karam originally did not want to do the project. In fact, he was apprehensive of it because of how toxic 6ix9ine is and the controversy that surrounds his music “career”. However, it eventually came around when he realized that it wasn’t about the music, but the culture.
“It’s a project that is really an opportunity to shed light on where we are as a culture right now,” Karam says. “We’re living in the era of a manufactured celebrity, and this is a time where people have control over their own platform and reality – they can shape that reality. It is pop culture figures, meaning that all these people can just create personas online, which create a lot of habits for a lot of people.”
One conversation that stands out throughout the entirety of the episodes is Danny’s first-time girlfriend and mother of his child, Sarah. Karam says that that particular interview went about for almost four hours, where it was very emotional for the both of them.
“During our conversation, I think I realized what I had shed the light on, you know, and realizing who he was – a manipulative attention-seeking villain,” Karam says. “She also maintains an element of objectivity, which I was very surprised by. She’s not bitter about it, you know what I mean? She’s still pure about it. I think a lot of times, you see the different projects and the people are sometimes bitter, but she was very objective and was able to talk about things. Her being the closest person to him in his life, she was able to lead the way and conversation.”
New episodes will debut on-air every Sunday through March 7, while the entire series will release for on-demand streaming or download on SHOWTIME and across all SHOWTIME partner platforms on February 21st.