During this time abroad, 6ix9ine, the controversial New York rapper who pled guilty in 2015 to using a child in a sexual performance, released “Gummo.” The song, his breakout, uses one of Pi’erre’s beats. 6ix9ine reportedly received the instrumental without Pi’erre’s knowledge via a previous collaborator, Trippie Redd, and Pi’erre publicly denounced the song from the jump. “There’s just some shit I don’t fuck with,” he says now. “[6ix9ine] know what I’m talking about. All them know what I’m talking about. It was some weird shit, and I don’t have time for that ‘cause I’m big on communication. Everybody wanted me to be happy about that shit and I don’t wanna. I pray a lot. I don’t wanna be unappreciative and ungrateful about what happened after the fact, the success that people call it, but it was some bullshit.” He ended up accepting compensation for the track, but, shaken by the situation and its online backlash, he limited his social media presence and doubled down on his intention to keep only his closest friends around.

Then in the spring of 2018, he headed to Wyoming to work with Kanye West, a fellow artist-producer he’s long admired. The two worked on music for what would become Kanye’s Ye project. “A lot of stuff that came out, they used my drums and shit, so it’s like I’m on it but I ain’t,” he said, referring to the fact that he didn’t actually get any production credits. Around that time, Pi’erre appeared in a video shot in Wyoming, in which T.I. and Kanye have an open conversation and record a song, “Ye vs. the People,” about the latter artist’s decision to wear a MAGA hat. Soon after, Kanye would make an appearance on TMZ, saying that slavery “sounds like a choice.”

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“My whole family was calling me about that damn hat. All I wanna do is make music,” Pi’erre says. “I feel like when artists become stars, they have a big voice and sometimes your voice should just be said through music. It shouldn’t be Instagram posts. It shouldn’t be Twitter rants.” He adds: “I want to be bigger than Kanye. I wanna be a better example for the kids than Kanye. Musically, growing up, I wanted to do things like Kanye, but after meeting him and my experience, I feel like I did what I needed to do as far as trying to aspire to be someone else. Now it’s just Pi’erre’s time.”

