Oct 30, 2014 T-Pain can buy Us a drank anytime. The “Turn All the Lights On” singer, 29, who helped popularize the use of auto-tune as an instrument, stopped. Apr 04, 2019 It was perhaps an unlikely victory for a singer associated more than any other with Auto-Tune, the vocal-processing software T-Pain’s been using since the mid-2000s — in songs like “Buy U a. To call the rise of Auto-Tune and the rise of T-Pain's popularity synonymous would be an understatement of the highest degree. While others used the tool.
To be a man in his twenties, it’s mildly amusing to think of T-Pain as reinventing his career-it just started in 2005. The Tallahassee, Florida artist instantly became a star because, quite simply, he knew how to make hits. Pain’s experimentation with the Auto Tune pitch corrector just seemed to work with every lyric he came up with. He had the formula for club bangers down to a science with tracks like, “I’m Sprung” and “I’m N Luv (With a Stripper).”After a while though, the masses grew somewhat impatient with Pain’s use (or for some-his overuse) of the vocal tool. T-Pain’s signature Auto Tune-tinged hits had somehow become a sort of parody of itself, inadvertently inspiring a substantial number of knockoffs in those first years. The influx of robotized hooks on the radio finally pushed one very respected emcee to create the song that would publicly denounce Auto Tune, pushing it from its gold plated pedestal in hopes of fatality.
- Oct 13, 2018 From T-Pain to Travis Scott: The Rap Auto-Tune Spectrum. In keeping with the narrative, he was criticized for his heavy Auto-Tune use, but a cursory review of Boat’s catalog proves he doesn.
- Oct 15, 2008 Why does T-pain always use auto-tune? I know it's his thing, but why? I've always wanted to know. Oh and don't say because he can't rap or something, cause he does sound good without it. 1 decade ago. Favorite Answer.
Everyone can certainly agree that T-Pain’s music has a distinctive finger-popping quality that even the most stubborn Hip Hop head can’t resist. More than that though, he provides the genre with yet another dimension, whether or not it’s loved by all. After three years of reflection and brainstorming, Pain is back with his fourth album,rEVOLVEr. The LP is the product of his new found determination to benefit from his own ideas: making good music and creating his own lane in the music software market- AutoTune be damned. Antares auto tune new.
DX had the opportunity to talk with T-Pain about the difficulties behind shaping his fourth album, battling Kevin Hart, and how he plans to kill AutoTune.
HipHopDX:rEVOLVEr is your first album in three years. The longest you’ve gone without dropping an LP was the couple of years between your debut Rappa Ternt Sanga and the second Epiphany. Did you have some difficulty nailing down what you wanted for your fourth album?
T-Pain: Yeah. I actually did have some difficulty with it, but you know, it was more of me wanting to get out what I wanted to get out [and] make the songs how I wanted them to sound – how I heard them in my head. Because every other time I did it on any other album, it was like, “Ah, well this sounds close enough. So let’s put it out…” Then boom, every time I heard it, it bothered me so this time I actually sat down and got it out the way I heard it in my head.
DX: So you developed into a perfectionist on this one?
T-Pain: Yeah. Pretty much. That ‘s pretty much what was going on.
DX: What’s the significance behind the stylization of rEVOLVEr‘s lettering?
T-Pain: Basically, it’s just don’t judge a book by its cover. Usually, when people hear the name of the album’s rEVOLVEr, they’ll think of guns and violence and stuff like that, then when you see the title, you see it’s all about evolution and evolving and getting better. It’s not just the title of the album.
DX: What was it about that Lily Allen sample that made you want to implement it on “5 O’ Clock”?
T-Pain: Man, that was just a sweet song. I had only heard it one time before I sampled it. And that was over the phone. I think it was just the chords on it, the way she sounds, I thought it was pretty damn dope.
DX: Did you hear that she said she wanted to be a part of the video?
T-Pain: Yeah, yeah… She definitely wanted to be but she could not ‘cause she’s preggers.
DX: What are you thinking of for the next single?
T-Pain: Right now, we’re just going with the flow. We’re not even thinking of the next single right now. It’s kinda an album full of singles. I mean, I recorded 86 songs for this album. We just picked 17 of the best ones. It’s a gang of singles on this album, so we’re just waiting on it to come out and we’ll see whatever ones ones people like and boom, that’ll be what it is.
DX: You dropped five singles over the past year or so, but the only one to make the album is the Chris Brown-assisted “Best Love Song,” why choose that particular one to include?
T-Pain: That was the only one I was recording for the album. [Laughs] With the other ones it was just like, “I need to put a song out real quick…” and just record that song and we put it out. “Best Love Song” did so well on the charts and did so well on iTunes, I think people would be pissed off if it wasn’t on the album.
DX: You’ve publicly announced that you’re done with Auto-Tune, and have moved on to “The T-Pain Effect.” What are the differences between the two? Also, it’s available for consumers, right?
T-Pain: Well, with The T-Pain Effect you get more. You get my whole thing, everything that I use in the studio. You get my reverb and of course you get the pitch correction, the EQ, you get the delay… Everything all in one package. And you can record right onto the Effect and you can make beats on the Effect and it’s just like this whole studio for $100. Just trying to give something back to the people instead of them getting a pitch corrector for $500.
DX: Did you guys end up having any legal problems with Auto Tune at all?
T-Pain: Nah, not at all. We tried to do a deal with them. They were greedy. We said ‘no,’ so hey…
DX: The freestyle between you and Kevin Hart a/k/a Chocolate Drop was a hilarious way to promote your album. You’re not necessarily known for going “off top,” neither is Kevin. Was it a way to sort of thumb your nose at “serious” rappers? Who came up with the idea?
T-Pain: [Laughs] It was just something that I thought of, man. Something that we could have some fun with. Me and Kevin [Hart] always wanna shoot something, but we never have the time to, but he had some time that day and I was like, “Man… We gotta shoot something.” And so we just kinda came up with that, so you know, we shot it in like, an hour, but it came out pretty dope. It was something we were just having fun with. I had a hard time not laughing. It was dope though, came out great.
DX: What’s next for your Nappy Boy label?
T-Pain: We doing a Nappy Boy Takeover Tour right now taking all of our artists out and creating a little bit of buzz. We got Joey Galaxy who just jumped and we’re trying to get him fully all the way out there. We got Shawnna, doing her thing. We got Travis from Gym Class Heroes, he’s definitely doing his thing. One Chance ‘bout to go on tour with me.
DX: What the one thing in your career that you’d say you’re most proud of?
T-Pain: [Chuckles] I think the thing I’m most proud of right now is that I have a career. ‘Cause there are a lot of people that are gone real fast.
During the late 2000’s and early 2010’s, T-Pain was one of the most popular artists in hip-hop. Not only was he releasing original tracks, with songs like “I’m Sprung”, “Bartender”, and “Can’t Believe It”, but he was also frequently featured on tracks alongside other major artists. One of his most successful singles was “Low”, the Flo Rida song. His work has been critically acclaimed and commercially successful, but he hasn’t been nearly as popular in recent years as he has been in the past. What has T-Pain been doing in 2017? Is T-Pain still making music? In this article, I plan on writing about what the artist did to achieve success while also providing his fans with an update as to what he has been up to now. Without further ado, let’s catch up with this hip-hop star.
T-Pain’s Early Life and Career
T-Pain, also known by his birth name of Faheem Najm, was born in September of 1985 in Tallahassee, Florida. As you may have been able to guess by his name, Faheem was raised in a Muslim household while he lived in Tallahassee. However, he didn’t particularly connect with the religion. Faheem was attracted to music at a very young age, however. His family was friends with Ben Tankard, a gospel jazz artist and music producer. When Faheem was just a little kid, Tankard allowed him into the studio and let him fiddle with some of the music equipment. By the time Najm was ten years old, he had completely committed himself to music. He had a keyboard, a four-track recorder, and a beat machine that he planned on using to produce music for himself. Faheem had a rougher childhood, and his stage name “T-Pain” actually means “Tallahassee Pain”. Needless to say, his feelings toward the city aren’t the best.
In 2004, Najm joined a rap group called Nappy Headz. Although the idea of a bunch of young guys coming together and forming a rap group seems unreasonable, it isn’t all too uncommon for aspiring rappers to get their start by joining a larger group. While he was with the group, he recorded “I’m Fucked Up”, a track that served as a cover of Akon’s song “Locked Up”. The cover ended up getting back to Akon, and he liked it so much that he immediately went and signed T-Pain to his label, Konvict Muzik. Once he was signed, Najm was able to release his debut album: Rappa Ternt Sanga. The album didn’t commercially perform as successfully as Faheem may have liked, but that was mostly because he had yet to become a popular mainstream artist. Rappa Ternt Sanga debuted at 40 on the Billboard 200 chart. Its peak position would be at 33. However, two singles from the album, “I’m Sprung” and “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)” would go on to become successful on their own.
T-Pain’s second album Epiphany was released in 2007. Fitting along with the name, Epiphany was kind of a break through for Faheem in terms of success. It sold over 170,000 units in its first week, which led to it topping the Billboard 200. The success of the album could be partially credited to the release of “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’)”, Epiphany‘s lead single. “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’)” did extraordinarily well for itself, topping the Hot 100. This was T-Pain’s first chart topping single although it certainly wouldn’t be his last. Shortly after the release of this album, Najm shifted his focus to collaborating with other artists. During this time period, he would have high-profile collaborations with artists like Chris Brown, Flo Rida, DJ Khaled, Bow Wow, and Kanye West. His collaboration with Kanye on the track “Good Life” would end up winning a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song.
T-Pain at the Height of his Career
Needless to say, T-Pain was known as a successful musical artist by this point in his career. He had worked alongside enough big names to be considered a big name on his own. Faheem released his third album Thr33 Ringz in 2008. His popularity would allow him to perform in major television programs like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Saturday Night Live, and the CMT Music Awards.
Faheem’s increasing popularity allowed him to do a lot more than just that, too. In 2009, an app was released called “I Am T-Pain” that allowed users to auto tune and modify their voices to play over various T-Pain tracks. I personally remember that this app was very popular, and that it also spawned a couple of physical toys that did basically the same thing. You see, Faheem had developed a personal style in that he was well-known for his creative use of an auto tuner over vocals. This gives his music a very distinct sound that some people love and some people hate. Regardless, you can’t deny that the style had a significant social impact, since it was able to generate a successful app. Anyway, he saw even more success and popularity when he was prominently featured on DJ Khaled’s hit single “All I Do Is Win”. He also had a large role in Pitbull’s single “Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor)” and Nelly’s single “Move That Body”.
In December of 2011, after a significant break, T-Pain released the album rEVOLVEr. One of the most popular songs to come from this album was “5 O’Clock”, a song that featured Lily Allen and Wiz Khalifa. The song peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200, and it was also successful in countries like Belgium, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. After another break, T-Pain announced in 2013 that he was working on his fifth studio album, entitled Stoicville. Around this time, he also went and released T-Pain Presents Happy Hour, a greatest hits compilation album. In the years to come, he would release a couple of songs like “Coming Home” (a free download meant to promote Stoicville), “Make That Shit Work” with Juicy J, and “Officially Yours”. Stoicville had yet to release, but Faheem promised his fans that the album was still on its way. So, was that true? Has the album come out yet?
What’s T-Pain Doing Now in 2018 – Recent Updates
Why Does Tpain Use Auto Tune
Unfortunately, Stoicville has still not been released. In October of 2016, T-Pain went and released the lead single off of the album, “Dan Bilzerian”. The single features Lil Yachty. Outside of working on promoting his new album, Faheem also worked a little bit outside of his normal sphere. He worked with Bruno Mars on 24K Magic as a writer. Faheem worked predominantly on the song “Straight Up & Down”. In November of 2016, he was featured in the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History as Stevie Wonder. Outside of those things, T-Pain has also attracted some attention on the Internet as a gamer. He has been known to regularly stream some of his gaming sessions on the platform Twitch.tv, where you can find him under the username tpain. As of now, it still looks like Stoicville is meant to be released, presumably in 2017. Fans of T-Pain don’t have to worry about him retiring from the business anytime soon.