Tekashi 6ix9ine’s delayed album, ‘Dummy Boy,’ arrives as rapper faces racketeering, firearms charges

The Brooklyn-based rapper, whose legal name is Daniel Hernandez, pleaded not guilty to racketeering and firearms charges earlier this week. His album "Dummy Boy" was released on Tuesday. (AP)

Amid the avalanche of news around Tekashi 6ix9ine over the past week, one of the lesser-noticed items after he was arrested on an array of federal charges last week is the fact that his “Dummy Boy” album was postponed from its scheduled Nov. 23 release. While the rapper remains incarcerated after his bail was denied Monday, the album suddenly arrived on streaming services Tuesday afternoon.

In a probably unintended irony, the album’s first track, “Stoopid,” is a duet with rapper Bobby Shmurda, who also is in prison — on murder-conspiracy and weapons charges until at least late 2020. Other features on the album — every song of which, as usual, has a single-word all-caps title except “Tic Toc,” which has two — include Kanye West, Nicki Minaj, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, Tony Lanez, Lil Baby and others.

6ix9ine (real name: Daniel Hernandez) pleaded not guilty to federal racketeering and firearms charges in New York on Monday morning. A pre-trial conference is set for January 22 and the trial is scheduled for September. The rapper, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, and his co-defendants, who also pled not guilty, will remain in custody, where they have been since Nov. 18, although it is unclear for how long.

Hernandez, who was already in legal trouble on multiple fronts, was arrested with Jordan and associates Faheem Walter and Jensel Butler in New York on Nov. 18 on federal racketeering and firearms charges. The eight-count indictment claims Hernandez and the other defendants “participated in the operation and management of” the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods gang. Hernandez, Jordan, and two others are accused of robbing unidentified rivals of the gang at gunpoint on April 3; the indictment also mentions a July 16 shooting incident in Brooklyn.

Hernandez and others are accused of agreeing “to shoot an individual who had shown disrespect to members of Nine Trey, and as a result of this agreement an innocent bystander was shot.” Hernandez and Joran are both facing six counts, the most serious of which is discharging a firearm while committing a crime, which carries a minimum 25-year sentence and a maximum penalty of life.