re you happy with the response to your debut album? How many copies did you sell? We’re up to around 800,000 right now. Were you hoping for a million? Shit, I was hoping for two. Two copies, shit. I was just hoping someone wanted to listen to it and someone would buy it. I didn’t give a fuck. (laughs) So I’m happy as hell. How do you think your image has affected your record sales? Oh, it’s affected it a lot. People didn’t understand it at first. They just thought I was the weed man. You know, the weed man done got his own studio and shit. I guess I can’t hate on that, you know, people got to get used to some different shit. So were you the weed man before you started rapping and singing? Not at all. I wasn’t shit. I was one of the least cool niggas in my whole neighborhood. I was the only person that always stayed in the house. I didn’t ever do nothing. I ain’t egg nobody’s house on Halloween. I didn’t do none of that shit. I was always chillin’. I ain’t going to act like I was the gangster of the year. My family owned two restaurants, so I was a little rich kid at first. Then when they lost the restaurants, shit got crazy. That’s when things started getting hard. People always say it was hard in their childhood, but for me, it was hard in my adult hood. It was just getting worse and worse as I got older, but it’s all good right now. You started out as a songwriter, right? What are some other songs you’ve done that people might not know about? I just wrote a song for Britney Spears that’ll be her first single when she gets out of rehab or when her hair grows back. I wrote one for Joe, and one for Mario. People are just starting to get wind of T-Pain as a writer. That just started happening as my second album has been progressing. “Sprung” and some of the other songs on your last album were initially for Akon, right? Yeah, but he wasn’t doing that type of stuff at the time. [The sound effect] was just something I always wanted to do, even as a young producer. So when I got it I went crazy on it. Charlamagne The God kinda clowned you on his radio show in South Carolina. How do you feel when people say you can’t sing? I don’t really care. I’ve got songs I don’t use at home, and I don’t need all those [sound effects] to do it. With Charlamagne’s show, I know what that’s about. I mean, I was hoarse from the [performance] and they brought me in right after the show and asked me to sing. If I hadn’t done it, they would’ve been like, “This nigga really can’t sing.”
want me to rap, but even fans wre like, “Man, you gotta rap more.” I guess they’ve heard mixtapes or some of the other stuff I’ve done. Same kind of flavor as the last album? Yeah, I mean, I’ve got more knowledge now. I know what to do now. I’m not saying that I’m going to follow the standards, but I know what people want to see. I know what people want to hear from me now. You’ve got a new chain to represent Tallahassee, shaped like the capitol building. Are you into politics or any of that. Not at all. That really don’t matter. (laughs) But I gotta represent Tallahassee. They did give you a proclamation, right? Yeah. T-Pain Day. I’ve actually got two of them. One is July 17th and the other is December 7th. Why do you have two? I don’t know. They called me to Tallahassee and was like, “Hey, you got another T-Pain Day.” I wasn’t gonna turn it down. (laughs) So what happens on T-Pain Day? I come to Tallahassee. I mean, nobody gets off work or no shit like that. That’s how you’ll know you’re really famous. Did they give you a key to the city? Nah, they didn’t even give me a key to a car. Speaking of that, DJ Khaled says he thought you were Jewish. Is it true that you have a big stash somewhere? It ain’t hidden. I just know how to not be stupid. I’m not going to waste all my money on fucking Mercedes and gotdamn Bentleys and shit. You got a Mini Cooper instead? Yeah, I got a Mini Cooper. I got a Scion, an Escalade EXT, a ’72 Impala, a lil Ford Expedition just to ride around in, and another Escalade. I got a lot of fucking cars. People know my house just by the cars in the yard. They think it’s always a party going on, but it’s just all my cars. Right now I’ve got eight cars. Basically, add them all up and you’ve got one Bentley. Exactly, very smart. Have you made any other luxury purchases besides your chain? My damn house. That’s not really a luxury purchase. That’s luxury, trust me, it is. You go in that muthafucker and it’s luxury. I meet a lot of [artists] and a lot of them don’t have shit to show for it. By “luxury purchase,” I mean, stupid shit that you shoudn’t buy. Stupid shit? Oh yeah, I waste my money on stupid shit. Like fucking figurines.
The average person probably doesn’t understand the demand on your voice that’s required when you’re performing every night. Shit, all the time. My voice is fucked up right now. I’m trying to recoup and I’ve gotta get right back in the studio.
Bobbleheads? Little shit. I go to London, they have different cartoons over there. I waste money on stupid shit like that just because I can. I’ve got a lot of guns too. I like fucking guns. I think I’ve got more guns than Young Cash now.
Your features are all over the radio right now. Yeah, I got a whole lot of things coming. I just did something for Twista today. In the last few weeks, thirty something people have called me to do hooks and be on their songs. And this isn’t even underground, I’m talking about all major artists. I’m getting calls from A&Rs and getting song deals left and right. Atlantic wants five songs from T-Pain. I got 12 songs for Jive, 10 songs for Interscope. Basically, they just want that T-Pain flavor. I’m doing way better than the first go-around.
Sometimes when an artist blows up from a small town, there’s a bit of a backlash. Do you still get love in Tallahassee? It’s okay. Not to say that I don’t like Tallahassee no more, but I try not to go back to that [small town] mindstate. It was holding me back. There’s people there that are still in the Tallahassee mindstate. They’ve got to understand that it’s bigger than Tallahassee. It’s bigger than Florida. It’s bigger than the United States, period. If somebody goes from Tallahassee to London, their whole mindframe would change. They’d fucking move somewhere else just to get out of that mindframe. Even going from Tallahassee to Atlanta – that was my experience – just seeing the difference in cars, that’ll put you in a whole ‘nother mindstate. It’s a different environment. I think a lot of people could come from Tallahassee and make it big, but they’ve got to get out of that mindstate.
When does your new album come out? May 22nd as it stands right now, but [the release date] might move back or forward. The first single is “Buy You A Drink,” with Yung Joc. Are most of the songs you write based off personal experience, even when you’re writing for another artist? Some are based on my personal experience. Some are based on the person I’m writing for, what kind of person I think they are, how they feel. I’m like an actor. I’ve gotta get into character when I do shit for somebody else, just to try to turn myself into them so I can know how they think about situations. Is this album more rapping or singing? It’s definitely way more rapping. It’s about 50/50. I didn’t know people would
So you live in Atlanta now? Do you like it better? Yeah, I live in Atlanta now, and I like it a lot better. A lot of people work together up there, man. I was living in Miami at first. I lived in Miami for six months, moved up to Atlanta, and got more shit done [in Atlanta] in six weeks than I had done in the six months I was in Miami. It was a big difference. A lot of people call me and come to my studio to work with me. People don’t do that in Miami, for some reason. I have no idea why. People just act funny. They want it all to theyselves in Miami. Or maybe I just wasn’t shit OZONE MAG // 51