6LACK Breaks Down His Tattoos

[clapboard clacks]

What up, this is 6lack and this is my tattoo tour.

[hip hop music plays]

The craziest thing is that my first tattoo

was absolutely during spring break.

It wasn't a crazy tattoo,

but it was definitely my first one.

This was college spring break, I was at Valdosta State,

stopped by a random tattoo shop

and I didn't know what to get

and the word self-made just popped up in my head.

That was it, just some little cursive, just self-made.

Keep it simple, nothing I'll regret later.

I always knew that I had a high interest in tattoos

but I didn't get one when I was growing up

because I lived with my mom and she was basically just like,

if you live here, these are my rules,

and when you go out there

you can do whatever you want to do.

When I saw Wiz's full montage coming up

during the How Fly, Kush and Orange Juice, How Fly era,

I was like, oh those are crazy tattoos.

And then Wayne, I think this Wayne is an obvious.

From the beginning of time, he had some very pivotal tattoos

and tattoos that keep remember by photo shoot

and remember by music videos, so.

Then besides that, I was always drawing and sketching.

I liked to jot things down

and eventually use them later on in life.

A good portion of my tattoos are either drawn by me

or edited by me.

I'm not married to any one artist

as far as doing my tattoos.

There's a guy who goes by Ink by Kali

from Atlanta who I work with a lot.

Shout out to him.

He did this sound wave of the lead single

from the last album, Since I Have a Lover.

And he did the lover tat right there as well.

And then I have a Mamba tattoo

right on the back of my neck.

Homage to Kobe, my favorite athlete of all time

and my favorite basketball player

and my favorite mindset when it came to sports in general.

Mamba mentality was how I looked at my music.

When he passed, that was one of

the first tattoos that I got.

Little Mamba reference.

This is one of my most recent ones.

I got a lotus flower and I got Totoro.

Studio Ghibli movies are some of my favorite movies.

I got Jiji from Kiki's Delivery Service.

Those, I believe, are my most recent ones.

It'll always be my most favorite tattoo, the bear claw,

cause it is symbolic of the moment when

I knew I would dedicate the rest of my life

to what I love, which was my music.

It was saying you might not be able

to get a real job with this.

And this was back during the times where

tattoos were still very frowned upon

and just like, Oh you can't be visible,

you gotta be presentable,

you'll never get hired liked that.

So this was my moment of saying

I don't really want to be hired,

I just want to do what I like.

I'm trying to think of most painful.

It's not necessarily the tattoos

that are the most painful, it'll just be an area.

So anywhere near my wrist,

like I have an enso circle over here

on the right side, a zen circle,

and this part of the bear claw,

when it gets near that little bone in my wrist

it starts to rattle, and that's definitely painful.

Every other part of it, I try to feel it as therapeutic

and I close my eyes and listen to some music,

but when it gets right there, that's when

a single tear might fall out of my eye.

Most of these on this arm have something to do

with interconnection or my mind state.

So enso just kind of being my homage to imperfection

and finding the beauty in things that aren't complete.

And then that kind of connects into all these water symbols

that just recognize my birth chart and who I am, a Cancer.

We have the seed of life right here,

which speaks to the Genesis pattern

and just how things are created

and how everything ends up being connected.

Yeah, then a bunch of neighboring things,

like the Cancer constellation,

more water symbols, a little crab right there.

Yeah, this is my woke arm, I guess.

Then I got some dragons on this side,

and I just got that after I binged Game of Thrones.

And I was just like, oh yeah,

this is one of my shows, and gotta pay homage.

I love anything medieval, dragons, magic, kings, queens.

Longest to heal might've been this faded black panther

that needs to be touched up.

This was also another one of my earliest ones.

Took the longest to heal because just of all the shading

and there was a moment where I thought

and I'm like, we have to be almost done at this point.

And I looked and there was just this corner

of it shaded black and I was just like, fuck!

I just find animals that I resonate with the most.

So during that time, black panthers or jaguars, black bears,

those were like my two animals

that I pinged off of the most.

I loved their stealth, I loved their strength,

I loved their tranquility when they're

in their own element and undisturbed.

The panther and the bear both were just

like monikers that I look to the most

and felt like I should pay homage to.

Bear claw, panther head.

Trying to think if I have any other animals.

Oh yeah, I got a little bear right there walking,

that's just a geometric bear.

I feel like if you've been on Pinterest

you've seen this one a bunch of times, so.

Pinterest is good for inspiration,

don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

I have a few to tattoos that are dedicated to my daughter

and dedicated to my favorite number.

I have Syx's name on my hand.

I have a rose to represent her middle name.

Metatrons cube, which has six points in it,

but also speaks to this arm and the building blocks

of everything that we know and love physically

and what it all is made from.

Yeah, and then the number six, the digit.

I was just sketching on my iPad.

It looks a lot more detailed when you blow it up on the iPad

but for now, it's cool, I like it how it is.

I think I might have told my girl during the time,

but besides that, it wasn't a pre-meditated

I'm about to eventually get my face tatted type of thing.

My mom, obviously was like, Oh, why you do that?

Why you mark up your face?

But it's tiny, you know.

Barbara is my grandmother.

This was, of all the grandparents that I have,

the one that I was the most closest to.

I remember a good portion of my childhood

growing up either around her or near

or having visits back and forth

from Baltimore to Atlanta and spending time with her.

After she passed, this was my tribute to her.

She was a very, very sweet lady.

Secrets, hmm.

Not necessarily a secret, I have a symbol

just that had no defining meaning.

I was just making things again and I liked it

and I ended up getting it tattooed behind my ear.

But I never really know what it looks like

and sometimes I get a little bit of dry skin back there

so it just stays tucked away.

And every now and then, somebody's like,

Oh is that a whatever, da da da.

And I'm like...

I honestly don't know what it looks like back there,

I have no idea if it's cool or not.

Maybe one day I'll put a mirror to it and check it out.

I got once crescent moon on my finger right here,

I got one crescent moon right here

along with all the water symbols and my Cancer sign.

If I don't have any more, I'm pretty sure

I'll end up with at least a couple more.

Let me see if I missed any that I want to talk about.

Oh yeah, talk about it.

I have talk about it right here on my forearm.

I got this in the middle of tour.

For me, it was during a time period where I

kept running into the issue of having things

that I thinking about or feeling

and not necessarily communicating it.

And then, later on, it blows up in your face

and you're like, all I had to do was say this or do that

and it would have completely changed the course of my day.

Sometimes I just have to glance down

and give myself a simple reminder if I'm feeling it,

if I'm thinking it, talk about it.

On the backs of my, right above my...

East Atlanta Love Letter acronym, that was free on tour.

And the Free album, Free 6 album is right there too, so.

Those are some of the cheapest ones.

Most expensive might have been the self-made one,

which is crazy, cause it was my first tattoo.

I went to a random shop, they told me some price,

and I was just like cool, sounds good to me.

And when I say expensive too, I feel like

something might have cost me a little bit more,

but it's no reason why this should have been

like $350 during that time.

Yeah, they got me, it's all good though.

Spring breaker.

Diamond in the rough was, it's kind of faded.

This is another one I need to get touched up and sharpened.

But just the diamond right here,

the words in the rough are under it.

That, to me, just speaks to what I feel my process has been

is my life could have been a million different things,

I've been in a million different situations

that have nothing to do with musicianship

or stardom or having what you need

to be in a place where I have all the essentials

and the things that I need and my people are good.

Diamond in the rough represents that.

This says zone 6.

This is a rib tat that goes down the side.

Zone 6 pays homage to the neighborhood that I grew up in.

It gave me a lot of inspiration,

whether it was music-related,

whether it was just culture and how we dressed,

whether it was dialect, lingo, slang.

That side of Atlanta was my stomping ground

for most, if not all, of my life.

And even to this day, I still live

on that side of town, so.

Zone 6, it's with me forever.

I got speed for my cousin who passed away.

His nickname was Speed.

I got this one when Prince passed away.

This was just my tattoo paying homage to Prince.

There's a purple line running through the bottom of it.

I got this one in Atlanta.

Yeah, I guess I have a good amount of tattoos

that pay respect to people who are still here with us

but here in spirit.

I got a compass because I'm weirdly obsessed

with knowing where I am at all times.

Directions and time and promptness,

those are things that I just care about.

Even though I was late today.