|
In the
winter of 2005, southern soulster T-Pain burst on the rhythmic scene with his
debut Rappa Ternt Sanga and things just ain’t been the same. As a former
microphone fiend who was down with the rap pack known as the Nappy Headz, a
five-man group who had moderate success with “Robbery” in the early 2000’s,
T-Pain was tired of the borders that divides hip-hop and soul, especially since
he was excellent at both.
“I just got tired of turning on the radio and everything just sounding the
same,” remarks the Tallahassee, Florida native whose government name is Faheem
Najm. “I know it might sound corny, but I wanted to try and make something
different.” After doing an unofficial remix of Akon’s
“Locked Up,” the African sensation signed T-Pain to his Konvict Music imprint.
Incorporating a soaring chorus, soulful handclaps and 808 grooves, his first
single “I’m Sprung” (2005) detailed the maddening joy of finding a new love.
“…with his acoustic guitar and Vocoder-laced vocals suggest a hurt that no
exotic dancer can cure,” wrote critic Chris Ryan in Spin magazine. While some
compared the laidback electro with the best of the late Roger Troutman of the
group Zapp, it was obvious that T-Pain was on a different level of creativity
than his contemporaries.
Followed by the enticing second single “I’m N Luv (Wit A Stripper). As T-Pain
told MTV.com: "Dancers love [the song]," he professed. "There's finally a song
about strippers that ain't degrading. It's not the shake-that-ass song or 'Let's
go in the backroom.' It's a song that's appreciating strippers.” Well on his way
to a brilliant career, T-Pain sold a combined five million ring-tones of
“Stripper” and “Sprung.”
Coming back strong in 2007, T-Pain has been hard at work constructing his
sophomore joint Epiphany. “There has been a growth inside of me since I made
that first album,” states T-Pain, reflecting on the time he spent working on his
latest project. “To be blunt, I had to learn to stop being lazy in the studio.
On the first album I recorded what I thought people wanted to hear, this time it
was about me being an artist.”
Personal without being pretentious, Epiphany offers the listener a variety of
musical styles that ranges from the snappin’ first single “Buy U a Drank”
(featuring Yung Joc) to the rebel reggae furor of “Shotz” to the deep message of
“Suicide.” Indeed, with each song we can only marvel at the proficiency that
T-Pain has developed, both on the mic and behinds the boards.
“I recorded over forty songs in six months,” he says. “Of course, all of them
weren’t the hottest, but creatively I felt truly inspired when working on these
tracks.”
Borrowing from four different snap records to create one hot track, “Buy U a
Drank” manages to be simultaneously club-centric and romantic without being
straight-up nasty. “Basically, these days lots of people begin their
relationships in the clubs,” explains T-Pain. “Whole conversations begin with
some guy buying a young lady a drink. I wanted to make a song for those folks.”
On the second single, “Bartender” tells the tale of a broken-hearted dude and
his crush on a cutie-pie mixologist. “Sometimes, the bartenders are the hottest
girls in the club,” T-Pain explains. “Guys are always falling in love with those
girls, even if it goes no further than that night. ‘Bartender’ is an anthem for
those guys.”
While T-Pain has no problem making hypnotic dance tracks like the amazing
“Church,” he can also induce tears with songs like “Suicide.” Opening with the
sorrowful chords of a Spanish guitar, T-Pain lyrically flashes upon the many
ways the youth of today is killing themselves. “Having sex without condoms,
driving drunk, selling drugs, all that is ‘Suicide.’ We do a lot of stupid stuff
that only has one ending.”
Having seen firsthand how drugs can destroy the fiber of family, T-Pain
consciously chose to detour from that path. Recently, with his wife and
daughter, he recently relocated to Atlanta in hopes of a fresh start. In
addition, T-Pain built two studios in his sprawling basement.
Traveling throughout the world while on tour with label-mate
Chris Brown (and later with
Bow Wow), also gave T-Pain a different
perspective on life and music. “I loved being in London, because overseas it
seemed that people were taking different kinds of risks with their records,”
T-Pain says. “I was also impressed when I was in Brixton, and the club was
filled with Black people and not one fight broke out. Where I come from, folks
fighting inside the spot is a regular thing.”
In addition to Epiphany, T-Pain is also gearing up to start working with various
artists on outside projects including R. Kelly,
Kanye West, Usher,
Chris Brown and Britney Spears. “In the
past nineteen days, I’ve gotten more than twenty-five calls from artists who
want to work with me,” T-Pain explains. “Right now, it’s a very exciting time.”
While T-Pain embraces both the old-school and current R&B, his complete persona
on Epiphany shows us an artist who is unafraid of taking chances. “For me, soul
music is about love, and it’s that kind of warmth that I want to bring back to
the music.” Forget about the next level, because T-Pain is taking us places that
have yet to be defined.
[T-Pain
released Epiphany in October 2007]
Biography courtesy Sony BMG |
