Chicago bred artist, 6IXTEENTH’s “I’m Not Okay” doesn’t dress up spiritual crisis in the aesthetics of breakthrough, and the honesty hits harder than any sermon.
Released 5 December 2025 after strategic social media teasers, this isn’t testimony as victory lap. It’s testimony as admission, and it’s the most compelling thing he’s done.
The track opens deceptively simple, just voice and acoustic guitar, before Noah Kobi and 6IXTEENTH’s production transforms it into something cinematic that actually earns the build.
When the beats finally drop and electronic guitar riffs cut through the piano melody, it doesn’t feel like production flex. It feels like someone finally exhaling after holding their breath too long.
Gospel elements surface not as decoration but as instinct, the sound of someone who grew up in the church and can’t shake the language even when everything else is falling apart. That tension between faith and doubt creates something electric.
6IXTEENTH recorded this whilst navigating distance from family and friends, chasing purpose in unfamiliar territory, and you can hear every mile of that distance in his voice.
His vocals flow heartfelt and cracked in all the right places, never reaching for the polished sheen that would kill what makes this work.
“Lord help me, I’m on my own” repeats not as hook but as compulsion, the kind of prayer that comes out when pretending stops working.
The feeling is raw in ways alternative R&B rarely allows itself to be. No performance. No posturing. Just someone working through it in real time and letting you witness it.
The production understands that the power lives in the spaces between the swells.
The atmospheric soundscape doesn’t rush to lift you because 6IXTEENTH isn’t ready to be lifted yet.
By the time it reaches its swell, you’re already inside the confession rather than watching it happen.
The circular lyric structure, admitting, confessing, surrendering, captures how these moments actually move.
You don’t progress through them in straight lines. You spiral until something finally breaks open.
Most faith-adjacent songs treat confession as the setup for the comeback. 6IXTEENTH treats it as the destination, and that’s precisely why the song stays with you.
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