“Shaka Laka” by 6ix9ine & Yailin la Más Viral (ft. Kodak Black & Trifedrew)

You may already know who 6ix9ine is, the rapper who’s achieved an unprecedented level of infamy when he became the first mainstream hip-hop artist to be almost unanimously considered as a snitch by his peers. 

Since overcoming the related legal drama in late 2020, Tekashi, as he is also known, has remained musically active despite developing such a reputation, though it’s safe to presume not as active as he would have if none of that had transpired. For instance, the rapper only dropped one single, “Giné”, throughout all of 2022.

However, in June of 2023, Tekashi finally did get around to dropping a third studio album, “Leyenda Viva”, in June of 2023, which is the follow up to 2020’s “Tattle Tales”. 

“Shaka Laka”

As for “Shaka Laka”, La Corporación Music released this standalone single shortly thereafter, on 21 July 2023 (perhaps due to the fact that the album itself hasn’t performed well).

Yailin la Más Viral

Meanwhile, Yailin la Más Viral, as with 6ix9ine, is Latino, hailing from the Dominican Republic (while Tekashi is of Puerto Rican and Mexican parentage). It doesn’t appear that Yailin, a relative newcomer to the scene, has any hits in her discography yet, so we will take it that up until this point she has become better known as the wife of Anuel AA, a rapper from Puerto Rico who’s more popular than she is. The pair also gave birth earlier in 2023.

But as of the dropping of “Shaka Laka”, it has been rumored, with some pretty-solid evidence (such as the cover art of this track), that now Yailin is with 6ix9ine. And the two of them have already been caught up in some related controversy, in that they were prevented from performing their first collaboration, “Pa Ti” (which appeared on “Leyenda Viva”), at the 2023 edition of Premios Juvented in Puerto Rico, as it was concluded that Tekashi’s stage presence posed too much of a security risk. 

And as for the reason they came to that conclusion, we will speculate on that later in this post.

Kodak Black and TrifeDrew

The featured artists are Kodak and TrifeDrew. The former is a popular rapper from the US who is considered mainstream – so much so that he dealt with some backlash for opting to team up with the forsaken Tekashi. 

As for the latter, he’s a rapper from 6ix9ine’s hometown of Brooklyn (NY). And the two of them have worked together numerous times in the past, with Trife serving behind-the-scenes’ roles on some of Tekashi’s biggest hits, including co-writing 2018’s “Fefe” and 2020’s “Gooba”. 

Credits for “Shaka Laka”

TrifeDrew also co-wrote Shaka Laka with 6ix9ine, Black, Yailin la Más Viral and the track’s producer, Mauro “El Código Secreto”.

The Lyrics of “Shaka Laka”

After a brief intro, this song commences with its chorus, as held down by TrifeDrew. He uses the opportunity to basically threaten opps by means of drive-by gun violence, thus setting the tone of the track, as the first verse that follows, which is rendered by Tekashi, is composed of similar lingo. 

But it closes out with 6ix9ine seemingly mocking an unnamed addressee(s), someone who’s girlfriend he has bonked. Such braggadocio is common in the world of hip-hop. But considering that he may now be dating Yailin fresh after her relationship with Anuel, that statement can be logically taken as being directed at the latter

This we will also presume was one of the reasons Univision didn’t want Takeshi performing this song at Premios Juventud, in AA’s homeland of Puerto Rico. Or put otherwise, the two musicians are known to have something along the lines of a genuine feud over the Most Viral.

“Oh, you said sum’? Oh, you want redrum?
I got this Glocky on my hip, it’s spittin’ venom (Frrt)
Oh, you got hit up, ni–a, don’t think that it’s random
I hit ya block and dump the blicky out the Phantom
Oh yeah, oh yeah (Brrt, brrt)
Hit ’em out the Phantom (Huh, brrt, brrt)
Hit ’em out the Phantom (Ohhh)”

Kodak then commences the second verse by asking the addressee “how you lose your b*tch to a snitch”, a question which again can be taken as a jab against Anuel, though it’s also more of a general ponderance. 

Indeed, Black doesn’t harp on the matter but rather uses his contribution primarily to point to his own business prowess. And he seems to allude to, in a manner of interpretation, making money not only via the rap game but also by slinging on the streets.

Then, after another dropping of the chorus, we have the third verse, as presented by Yailin la Más Viral.  Unlike the rest of the song, her verse is dropped in Spanish. And she basically goes about depicting herself as a gangster chick, not only having “broken a couple of teeth” (according to a Google translation) in the ‘hood but also running with hitters and things of the such. 

And as for the title of this piece, as generally understood the term “shaka laka” doesn’t have any type of particular meaning but is rather used along the lines of serving as an exclamation or expression of hypeness.