Written By Casey Snyder
Black Air Force Activity 1 Review – Teejayx6 – 6 year anniversary (December 13th)!!!
In 2019, I first stumbled into the strange hyper-specific category of Detroit rappers who rapped exclusively about scamming credit cards, stolen Social Security numbers, and identity fraud, all told with the utmost confidence. My personal introduction to Teejayx6 came through Twitter, where he infamously sold a t-shirt printed with Teejayx6 stylized over the Mastercard logo, which itself was a scam, naturally. Originally, I didn’t know who Teejayx6 was or what he did, to me this random twitter user was running the most obvious t-shirt scam of all time. And yet, despite scamming his biggest fans there was something weirdly endearing about it.
When I finally started listening to his music, I fell in love immediately. The punchline heavy and off-beat raps still impress me to this day. As one of my favorite examples in the sub-genre celebrates its six-year anniversary this Saturday, it feels only right to write this six-year retrospective on the mixtape that sparked my love for the scene.
Following his Summer 2019 breakout with The Swipe Lessons, featuring hits like Website Scam and Dynamic Duo, Black Air Force Activity 1 would drop on December 13, 2019. In a world obsessed with polished, cleanly mixed music, Teejay’s scam rap mixtapes feel like a refusal to participate. Teejay often would list his music as purely educational. This educational aspect is most apparent in Swipe Lesson 3, which gives step by step instructions on how to steal money from best buy, from telling you “not to use internet explorer” and “tell them you need the items on time.” Teejay raps about browsing hidden marketplaces for “dumps” (stolen card data) and “fullz” (complete identity profiles) throughout the song. All this is set over a darker, more ominous production than the upbeat tracks found in most of the record, the prominent hi-hats remain, yet a haunting synth beneath makes the listener feel uneasy.
Work Out features a heavy synth bass line and the hi-hats that defined the style. Teejay begins the song briefly staying on beat, ten seconds later he is back off track, moments like this in the mixtape are some of the strongest. Teejay is incredibly consistent through this mixtape, never compromising on the style.
My personal favorite of the record is Dark Web. Dark Web begins with a catchy steel drum beat, amazingly Teejay never once gets on the beat, always off the beat, sometimes rapping, sometimes simply talking. There’s something attractive about this almost schizophrenic style of rapping, this on top of the lyrics that would serve to define the style. The opening line “The government tried to ban me from the dark web / I downloaded Tor Browser then got back” is one of those lines that could never leave your head. Its witty lines and iconic beat serve as one of the greatest examples of Detroit scam rap.
Following Black Air Force Activity 1, Teejay would expand on it with Black Air Force Activity: The Reload in 2020, which featured an additional half hour of music, packed full of features that lacked the synergy with Kasher Quon found on the Dynamic Duo series of songs. Teejayx6 would intentionally pivot away from the pure “scam rap “ label that defined his early work. In interviews he made it clear he wanted to expand beyond fraud-centric bars and be taken more seriously as an artist rather than just a novelty act tied to illicit narratives. By 2020, he had reflected that he had essentially stopped scamming in real life as his music career grew, and he wasn’t dropping as much music due to his lack of motivation. In October Teejay would drop his first album since the reload with Crime Pays. A very short, low energy attempt to recapture the virality found in his early music.
Looking back six years later, Black Air Force Activity 1, feels like less of a mixtape, and more of a time capsule from a hyper specific moment of internet-driven rap. The swipe lessons and methods that Teejay describes are reminiscent of the out-of-date YouTube tutorials on photoshop techniques that I always seem to get halfway through before I realize they don’t work anymore. When it dropped in 2019, it crystallized the energy of a rapidly forming Detroit Scam rap scene. TeeJay’s approach to the mixtape following the success of his previous songs was not to try to polish up his songs, or figure out a way to get on beat, instead he took virtually none of the critiques, and produced his best music. These decisions to embrace the punchy beats and off beat raps would define the style.
Despite the genres decline in popularity over the last few years, artists like Rio da Yung OG and Babytron still remain relevant, even if they remain unable to most. Much of the music today no longer features fraud storytelling, often replaced by niche internet and pop-culture references. Yet the punchline density, off-beat swagger, and proudly unpolished delivery still remain.
It might not be relevant in the traditional sense anymore, but it remains a minor classic. Black Air Force Activity 1 serves as an artifact of a moment where rap, fraud, humor, and digital culture were briefly aligned to create something so unique and endearing. Babytron’s, 20-beat opus Prince of the Mitten remixes the beat of Dark Web, immortalizing Teejayx6 in the canon of iconic Detroit rappers, a testament to the album’s historical significance.