In May, Kendrick Lamar took over the charts with “Not Like Us,” which saw him sending several shots at Drake. Nearly two months after its release, Keke Palmer has a question about the Compton emcee’s “69 God” lyric from the song.
On Thursday (June 27) evening, the actress enlisted social media to get to the bottom of the ambiguous reference. “Now, this is no shade, no tea, but I have a question, okay? Because I know the rap kids, they do a lot of clever little lines, especially somebody like Kendrick,” she began. “I am really curious about what’s so bad about being a 69 God?”
She continued, “[As] far as I knew, 69 was something that just meant you’re reciprocal, right? So, if you’re a 69 God, what’s so bad about that? I must be missing something. What’s the tea, boo?”
People quickly flooded the comments section of Palmer’s post, with someone writing, “Not that 69, sis! 6ix9ine the rapper.” Another person shared, “She’s thinking [about] the grown meaning of 69.” Meanwhile, a separate response with nearly 8,000 likes read, “It also means ‘reverse god,’ meaning the devil. Glad we figured that out.”
One user summed it up perfectly: “So the consensus is there is no consensus. Nobody knows what it means, but it’s provocative.”
The Six, or 6ix, is commonly used to reference Toronto area codes like 416 and 647. Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late notably contained a track titled “6 God.” He also made a nod to the term in April’s “Push Ups” with lines like, “Yeah, I’m the 6 God, I’m the frontrunner/ Y’all n**ga manager was Chubbs lil’ blunt runner.”
On June 22, Lamar was spotted filming the music video for “Not Like Us.” According to Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr., the Mustard-produced cut is eligible for a Grammy.