{"id":618985,"date":"2024-05-02T14:38:50","date_gmt":"2024-05-02T14:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicsynclicense.com\/?p=618985"},"modified":"2024-05-02T14:48:10","modified_gmt":"2024-05-02T14:48:10","slug":"whats-it-like-to-be-t-pain-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurus.net\/musicsynclicense\/whats-it-like-to-be-t-pain-now\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s It Like To Be T-Pain\u00a0Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tIn retrospect, the signs were there.<\/strong> The vintage arcade games on proud display in his 2008 episode of MTV Cribs<\/em>; the 2011 album inspired by steampunk aesthetics; the impulsive commission of a $400,000 meme in the form of a chain that said \u201cBIG ASS CHAIN\u201d (which is currently on loan to the American Museum of Natural History for a forthcoming exhibit on hip-hop jewelry). But it isn\u2019t until I step into the basement of T-Pain<\/a>\u2019s suburban Atlanta home \u2014 a neon-lit bunker with both a theater-size main gaming station and <\/em>a separate arcade room with soundproof doors (\u201cfor screaming and sh-t\u201d) and distinct areas for Atari, PlayStation, Tekken, Sega and SNES \u2014 that it fully sinks in. The man whose voice defined late-2000s party music is an unapologetic, card-carrying nerd.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been trying to tell people for a decade!\u201d the 39-year-old singer says with a booming laugh, pacing the game room in sweatpants and slippers. \u201cNobody wanted to listen.\u201d Ten years ago, few would have known that the artist who seemed to write hits in his sleep was regularly hopping on Twitch to play Skyrim<\/em> with like-minded gamers, or that he\u2019d tricked out his Hit Factory studio in Miami with a full stage for nightly Guitar Hero<\/em> sessions. (\u201cAny time an artist would come by the studio, I don\u2019t give a f\u2013k what you\u2019re talking about \u2014 grab this guitar and meet me in the booth,\u201d he says, pantomiming Pantera-esque riffs.)<\/p>\n

\n\tBack then, flying his geek flag in plain sight wasn\u2019t compatible with being the voice behind the buoyant, world-conquering records that have soundtracked nearly two decades of bottle service nightclubs, pro sports broadcasts and White House correspondents\u2019 dinners \u2014 at least not according to the powers that be. \u201cI never got to show that side of myself because management deemed it uncool. So instead of playing video games, we\u2019d go to the Dolphins game,\u201d T-Pain remembers, his perennially jolly voice tinged with only a hint of regret. \u201cBut I thought that the sh-t I<\/em> wanted to do was the coolest sh-t in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"T-Pain,<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tT-Pain: Photos From the Billboard Cover\u00a0Shoot\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tFor listeners of a certain age, T-Pain\u2019s music triggers Proustian memories of school dances, fake IDs and first sips of Boone\u2019s Farm, the soundtrack to the nights that Facebook photo albums were made of. Back then, the Florida teen born Faheem Najm to a family of Bahamian Muslims had a stage name short for \u201cTallahassee Pain\u201d and ambitions as a rapper that shifted when he heard the uncanny vocal effect applied to a remix of Jennifer Lopez\u2019s \u201cIf You Had My Love.\u201d In 2004, the 19-year-old inked a deal with Akon\u2019s Konvict Muzik label, having caught the singer\u2019s ear with a cover of his song \u201cLocked Up\u201d edited to be about having a busted car.<\/p>\n

\n\tTooling around on boosted equipment, he used vocal processing software to make himself sound like a choir of horny angels on his first hit, \u201cI\u2019m Sprung,\u201d or an android on a bender on his next smash single, \u201cI\u2019m N Luv (Wit a Stripper),\u201d both of which he wrote and produced as well as sang \u2014 and which both cracked the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100<\/a> in 2005. Before long, his digitally uplifted melodies, sweet and slightly melancholy, had become the de facto sound of the charts. Between 2007 and 2008, T-Pain landed 13 top 10 Hot 100 hits, including three No. 1s (Flo Rida\u2019s \u201cLow,\u201d Chris Brown\u2019s \u201cKiss Kiss\u201d and his own \u201cBuy U a Drank\u201d); for two weeks in 2007, he appeared on four top 10 singles at once. A dozen platinum and gold plaques hang throughout his basement, alongside an errant Grammy Award (best rap song for \u201cGood Life\u201d with Kanye West), a few plush toys designed in his likeness and a couple of White Claw empties.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut by the 2010s, the humanoid effect he\u2019d pioneered had grown ubiquitous, oversaturating pop music to the point that its originator became a punchline. (\u201cY\u2019all n\u2014s singing too much, get back to rap, you T-Paining too much!\u201d Jay-Z famously crowed on 2009\u2019s \u201cD.O.A. [Death of Autotune].\u201d) Meanwhile, T-Pain\u2019s own voice faded into the background. His fourth album, 2011\u2019s Revolver<\/em>, hardly moved the needle; its follow-up, 2017\u2019s Oblivion<\/em>, traded his signature melodies for middle-of-the-road trap he attributed to the demands of his then-label, RCA Records. He\u2019s frank about the profound depression that colored the years in between; in the 2021 Netflix docuseries This Is Pop<\/em>, he says it began on a flight to the 2013 BET Awards, when Usher called him over to accuse him of ruining music for \u201creal singers.\u201d (\u201cWe\u2019ve spoken since and we\u2019re good,\u201d Usher told Billboard<\/em> in 2021.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe comment hit close to home. T-Pain had been struggling with alcoholism, mismanaged finances and an overall loss of creative confidence. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to do \u2018Freeze,\u2019 I didn\u2019t want to do \u2018Buy U a Drank,\u2019 I didn\u2019t want to do most of the songs that are my biggest hits. Because, you know, I\u2019m an artiste<\/em>,\u201d he confesses in the basement with a chuckle and a deep sigh. \u201cBack then, when I got done with a song, I was always thinking, \u2018People are going to like this,\u2019 and not, \u2018I like this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the past decade, Pain (as he\u2019s known by his family and friends) has seemed hellbent on proving his artistic worth once and for all. In 2014, he arrived at his NPR Tiny Desk<\/em> concert unaware of the brief, then sang gorgeous unplugged renditions of past hits on a video that now has 27 million views. He removed his furry monster suit to reveal himself to a stunned judges\u2019 panel when he won Fox\u2019s The Masked Singer <\/em>in 2019, having anonymously out-sung Donny Osmond and Gladys Knight. And last year, he released a project he\u2019d been piecing together since 2017, a covers album (On Top of the Covers<\/em>) with source material ranging from Frank Sinatra to Black Sabbath, delivered with a full band and his soulful voice, au naturel. \u201cI think it\u2019s weird to even ask if I can sing anymore, or to even associate me with Auto-Tune in 2024,\u201d he says matter-of-factly. \u201cAll the proof is there, and it has been there for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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