Tekashi 6ix9ine snitched on fellow rappers Cardi B and Jim Jones and identified them as Blood gang members under oath.  

The 23-year-old rapper – real name is David Hernandez – detailed his time with the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods on the witness stand in Manhattan federal court on Thursday as he testifies in the racketeering trial against two members of his old crew, Anthony ‘Harv’ Ellison and Aljermiah ‘Nuke’ Mack.

Tekashi listed off the people he ran with in Nine Trey, name-checking Jim Jones and Cardi B in the process. Cardi B has previously said that she used to be in the Bloods.

Earlier in his testimony, Tekashi outed another rapper, Casanova, who he said was in a rival Bloods crew.

He described a gun battle between the Nine Treys and Casanova’s crew at the Barclays Center in April 2018 after the jury was shown surveillance video of the altercation.

Scroll down for video 

 Tekashi 6ix9ine has unleashed a cache of damning details about his time with the Nine Trey Gangsta Bloods over three days of testimony in the racketeering trial against two alleged former members – Anthony ‘Harv’ Ellison and Aljermiah ‘Nuke’ Mack

Earlier in his testimony, Tekashi outed another rapper, Casanova, who he said was in a rival Bloods crew. He described a gun battle between the Nine Treys and Casanova’s crew at the Barclays Center in April 2018 after the jury was shown surveillance video of the altercation. Tekashi (circled in red) stayed at the back of the fray

Under cross-examination, Tekashi confirmed that Cardi B was in Bloods but denied having copied her path to stardom by featuring his crew in his music videos.
‘I knew who she was. I didn’t pay attention,’ he told the court.

Rumors that Cardi B was in the Bloods cropped up back in 2017 when she made her label debut with Bodak Yellow, which features the lyric: ‘These is bloody shoes’.

The Invasion Of Privacy powerhouse confirmed speculation in an April 2018 interview with GQ.

‘When I was 16 years old, I used to hang out with a lot of…Bloods,’ she told the outlet. ‘I used to pop off with my homies. And they’d say: “Yo, you really get it poppin’. You should come home. You should turn Blood.” And I did. Yes, I did.’

On Thursday her rep denied the gang ties saying ‘This is not true’ in a statement to TMZ.

But the Bronx rapper took to Twitter to say otherwise in a since-deleted post writing: ‘You just said it yourself…Brim not 9 Trey. I never been 9 trey or associated with them’.

She also liked a fan tweet saying she was a part of the Brims, a subgroup of the Bloods, and not the Nine Trey gang Tekashi ran with.

Cardi shared a subtle jab at the snitching rapper on Instagram, posting a video of a Vanity Fair interview with Keke Palmer who scoffs and says: ‘I hate to say it. I hope I don’t sound ridiculous – I don’t know who this man is. I mean he could be walking down this street, I wouldn’t know a thing. Sorry to this man.’

Cardi hits back: Although Cardi’s rep denied her affiliation to the Bloods, the Bronx rapper took to Twitter to say otherwise in a since-deleted post writing: ‘You just said it yourself…Brim not 9 Trey. I never been 9 trey or associated with them’

Sorry, I don’t know him! Cardi B threw shade at Tekashi on Thursday sharing this video of Keke Palmer’s Vanity Fair interview where she scoffs and says: ‘I don’t know who this man is. I mean he could be walking down this street, I wouldn’t know a thing. Sorry to this man’

Tekashi had previously described on the stand how he used Nine Trey to increase his street credibility and bolster his career, in exchange for bankrolling the gang’s operations through his music earnings.

Over his three days testifying as the government’s star witness, Tekashi nervously unleashed a cache of damning details about the violent acts he witnessed running with Nine Trey.

He publicly distanced himself from the gang days before he and alleged fellow members were arrested in November 2018.

The rapper told the court that he cut a deal with prosecutors the day after his arrest, agreeing to testify against his former confidantes in exchange for avoiding a 47-year prison sentence.

When asked on Thursday whether he was spilling his vivid accounts to help the government or to get a more lenient sentence, he replied: ‘Little bit of both.’

On Wednesday, Tekashi broke down the events surrounding the Barclays incident with Casanova.

He said he and his entourage were at the arena to watch the Adrien Broner fight when they ran into Casanova’s crew in a tunnel under the venue and a brawl broke out.

‘We’re in a tunnel,’ he said. ‘The doors open and 30 of Casanova’s people come rushing at us, six or seven of us. They were trying to get to me but I made my way to the back.’

Tekashi testified that his former manager, Kifano ‘Shotti’ Jordan, told a fellow Nine Trey member, Fuquan Lovick, to ‘pull out the gun and shoot it’.

The prosecutor then played the security footage and asked Tekashi to identify the people in it.

Tekashi said after the altercation he took to Instagram and mocked Casanova.

A video of the mockery was shown to the court.

The violent altercation at Barclays was one of several Tekashi was asked to recount on the stand as he testified against alleged Nine Trey leaders Ellison and Mack.

Tekashi ran with the Nine Treys for about a year beginning in 2017, when he realized the impact gang affiliation could have on his career.

Known as much for his rainbow hair and heavy layer of tattoos, the Brooklyn native had started producing music in 2014 after someone approached him in the grocery store where he was working and said he had ‘got the image’ of a rapper.

He grew a substantial fanbase on social media before releasing his breakout hit Gummo in 2017.

Tekashi said the song was ‘an instant hit’ – which he credits largely to the fact that he’d managed to get Nine Trey members to feature in the video.

Recognizing the boost he’d gotten from the Nine Trey cameo, the rapper embraced Nine Trey and built it into his brand.

‘I knew I had a formula,’ he said. ‘That’s what people liked.’

On the stand, Tekashi portrayed himself as Nine Trey’s meal ticket, explaining how he bankrolled the gang and was repaid in street credibility and hits on his rivals.

One of those rivals, he said, was rapper Trippie Redd, an alleged member of the Five Nine Brims Bloods.

Tekashi said that he and Trippie were both signed by the same label and had collaborated on the track POLES1469 in 2017 but their personal relationship soon deteriorated.

‘There’s a lot of jealousy involved,’ he said. ‘[Trippie] was signed first. I later on signed, a couple months after. We had a song together, it was successful. Then jealousy, we got into online disputes.’

He said their rivalry turned violent after Trippie Redd’s manager reached out and said he wanted to ‘squash the beef’.

‘At the time I was very upset with him, he has already said a lot,’ Tekashi said.

He said that he asked Nine Trey kingpin Kifano ‘Shotti’ Jordan that he ‘wanted something done about Trippie’ – and Jordan made it happen.

Tekashi said his relationship with the Nine Treys began to sour in March 2018 when he booked a show in Austin, Texas, without clearing it with Rap-A-Lot Records, which considers the state to be its home turf.

He said Rap-A-Lot leaders retaliated by refusing to let him perform, causing him to lose out on around $15,000.

Tekashi said the lost revenue caused contention between his manager Jordan and his bodyguard Ellison because the latter called the former a ‘pussy’ for not standing up to Rap-A-Lot.

The following month, Tekashi said, the Nine Treys decided to get revenge on Rap-A-Lot Records head James Prince when he visited the gang’s home turf in New York City.

Tekashi testified that Jordan and other gang members robbed Rap-A-Lot reps in the lobby of a building while the rapper waited in a car outside.

Prosecutors showed the jury a video of the robbery recorded by Tekashi, along with surveillance footage from the building.

Tekashi said he fired Ellison as his bodyguard soon after.

Roughly four months later, Tekashi claims he was kidnapped at gunpoint and robbed by Ellison.

The incident was enough to make Tekashi turn on his crew after he and others were arrested last November.

Copy link to paste in your message
Tekashi claims he was kidnapped at gunpoint and robbed by Ellison, one of the racketeering defendants, in July 2018. The incident was enough to make him turn on his crew after he and others were arrested last November. He is pictured around the time of that arrest

He pleaded guilty to nine counts in February and made a deal with prosecutors, agreeing to testify against Ellison and Mack, who both pleaded not guilty.

Ellison is charged with Tekashi’s kidnapping and with assaulting a different Nine Trey member last fall.

Mack is charged with dealing heroin and MDMA.

It’s unclear how much weight Tekashi’s testimony will have given his long rap sheet.

In May 2018 he pleaded guilty in Brooklyn to disorderly conduct in connection with a traffic stop.

In 2015, he was sentenced to probation for appearing in a video in which a 13-year-old girl performed a sex act on another man.

In court proceedings, Tekashi has suggested that his brash stunts and penchant for violence – primarily his involvement in Nine Trey – were all part of his effort to bolster his ‘bad boy’ public persona.

His about-face from criminal to witness in the racketeering trial will likely spare him a lengthy prison sentence but could have far graver consequences executed by the people he’s snitching on.

Tekashi is currently being housed in a federal facility for his own safety and has been escorted into the courthouse through a secure tunnel, flanked by US Marshals.

Prosecutors have suggested that he could be moved into witness protection after his testimony.