A drive by occurred on November 8, during a film shoot for a music video featuring prominent hip hop artists Nicki Minaj, Kanye West and Tekashi 6ix9ine, in Beverly Hills. Both West and Tekashi 6ix 9ine were present during the incident, while Minaj was scheduled to arrive for the shoot later that day.
According to police reports, several shots were fired toward the direction of the set at 10:25 p.m. Soon after the incident, West left the scene immediately.
While the motive for the incident is unknown, Tekashi 6ix 9ine has been no stranger to similar shooting incidents throughout this year. The controversial rapper has been targeted on several occasions in the past, with a recent incident occurring during a collaborative music video with rapper 50 Cent.
The rapper has also faced numerous backlash in the past for allegations of sexual misconduct, with one incident involving a minor. Back in August, the rapper was recommended to serve one to three years in a federal prison and register as a sex offender after pleading guilty to ” the use of a child in a sexual performance.” Neither of those things occurred however, with 6ix9ine avoiding prison time in exchange for four years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service. The rapper was also not required to register as a sex offender as well.
Controversy has also been erupting for Kanye West throughout the past couple of years, due to the rapper’s “political awakening,” and endorsement of Donald Trump from 2016 to 2018 and subsequent backpedalling. A little over a week ago the rapper denounced certain members of the conservative moment he recently aligned himself with and claimed he was being used to support beliefs he did not actually believe in.
Despite the incident and his often open, yet confrontational approach on Twitter , West has made no clear statement on social media directly regarding the situation, only stating that he, along with his family are safe and thankful for his fan’s prayers. It should be noted however, that this statement could also be in reference to the current Woolsey fire in Los Angeles, that has burned through thousands of acres and over 300 homes.
Minaj has also seen her fair share of controversy this year, with the artist taking on tech giant Spotify, after claiming that the platform gave unfair preferential treatment to Travis Scott, which prevented her from being number one on the Billboard charts. According to Minaj’s social media accounts Spotify “artificially inflat(ed) his(Travis Scott’s) numbers through ticket bundles and the streaming service treat(ed) her unfairly.”
Despite these claims, the streaming platform denied any allegations of preferential treatment and stated it did its best to assist the artist. “Spotify supported Nicki Minaj with a Times Square billboard, a host of the largest playlists, New Music Friday and the new music release shelf,” a rep for Spotify explained. “Her song ‘Bed’ actually saw an increase based on the promotions put behind the campaign. The company continues to be big fans of Nicki.”
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