back-and-forth shit about bullshit interviews. So just like you said, niggas can agree to disagree. Ain’t nothing for me to say. Pimp C: I was glad to hear that y’all sat down like men. That made me feel good, cause down here in the South we don’t need that bullshit. We need to be getting that paper. No negative shit, man. Let’s talk about some more positive shit. I know you doin’ the family thing and shit, and I know you havin’ things. T.I.: Hey, man, I just got out the car. That nigga Usher says, “What’s happenin’,” man. Pimp C: Say, I’m fuckin’ with Usher. I’m actually waitin’ on a song he supposed to be sending me to do. T.I.: [to Usher] He says he’s waitin’ on that song you supposed to be sending him. Usher: [in the background] Tell him it’s comin’. T.I.: He says it’s on the way. Pimp C: As soon as I get it, I’m on it. So, yeah, I heard you were doing the family thing. You wanna talk about that? T.I.: My family’s doing very, very well. My youngest son is about to turn two in August. He breathing, walking, talking, getting big every day. My oldest son just turned six. He was fucking up in school for a minute, but we got it together now. My middle son just made student of the month a couple months ago, so I’m happy about that, and my little girl is doing good. She’ll be five in June. They really just getting settled into their new house. We just got a new house built. Everyone’s got their own playroom and their own little space, so they really just loving that shit right now. Pimp C: Well, I know how it is on my children. How do your children take the fame, and the way people react to Dad? T.I.: Honestly, I’m just blessed, because that’s all they know. They ain’t never been nowhere but Atlanta. In Atlanta, I’ve always been the guy to walk up to and speak to, even when they was little. So they grew up into it. Now, they kinda know the difference. They know that daddy’s job is to be on TV, and people want to take pictures with him. They understand that people want me to sign autographs and take pictures, and that’s just what daddy does for a living. Pimp C: Do you think it’s hard for them? I know it’s hard on my oldest son, at least. I have three kids. I got a twelve-year-old son, a five-yearold son, and a four-year-old daughter. For him, everywhere he goes, he feels like he’s representing me. This shit is a trip, cause when you in this shit, you ain’t got no personal life no more. Muthafuckers feel like you ain’t got no fears no more, so they say whatever. They take shots, and he feels like he gotta represent to the fullest 24 hours a day. Have your kids run into any of that shit? T.I.: Man, nah. But my kids are still real young. My oldest is only six. When I take them to school, their teachers know who daddy is. All they know is the positive aspects of what I do. They don’t know none of the negative stuff yet. Well, maybe my oldest, my stepchild. My oldest lil’ lady, she’s nine. So she knows. I’m sure she recognizes it. But don’t nobody really do too much salt-dropping, fortunately enough, at least not to a level where they can get ahold of it. Pimp C: Exactly. So it seems like you’ve got your shit together, and it sounds like you’re receiving your blessings and living your dreams. Where do you see yourself ten, fifteen years from now? T.I.: Homie, that’s the one question I can’t answer. Ten or fifteen years before now I couldn’t have seen myself here, so ain’t no damn telling. Pimp C: If you shoot for the stars, at least you gonna land up there with the moon. Shit, the sky’s the limit right now. You got these niggas right now, man. T.I.: I’m just trying to make the best out of every opportunity. Niggas like you showed me how to do this shit, for real. At least I know how to do this shit on a level where niggas on the streets can relate and respect that shit, as well as muthafuckers who are turning on their TVs and watching videos too. Pimp C: We was just some young country boys put in the position where we could prosper, and we did. It was a bumpy ride, but I feel like it was for a reason. T.I.: Y’all changed a lot of nigga’s lives, and a lot of nigga’s mindset. You really put a lot of niggas up on game, man. That Ridin’ Dirty shit was one of the greatest albums of all time. Pimp C: When I was making that album I was listening to [Dr. Dre’s] The Chronic real tough, man. I had it in my mind to make a Southern 60
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Chronic. I had to get as close to that muthafucker as I could, but with our style down here. It just so happened that everything started coming together. At the time my partner Smoke D was in the pen, and he sent me them commercials that I put in the middle of the songs. It seemed like God was playing on our time. So with this next record that we do, if the Lord blesses us, we gonna try to recreate that same feeling. T.I.: Right on, man. Anything you need from me, homie, it’s done. Just let me know, man, and it’ll be my absolute pleasure. Pimp C: You know, man, we need to lock down for seven days and do a whole album. That’ll really fuck up the world. T.I.: What are you sayin’, man? [laughing] JB (moderator): Everything in music tends to go in cycles. How long do you think the South will continue to dominate? What do you guys think the South needs to do to stay at the top? T.I.: Well, as long as I’m living, I’m doing everything in my muthafuckin’ power to make sure we gonna have something to celebrate for. Pimp C: We gon’ have to evolve with this shit. We can’t get stuck in the style and keep rapping about the same shit. I know it’s all about the 808 drums and the hand clap right now, but we gonna have to elevate. It can’t be an unnatural growth. If we grow naturally, we’ll keep this thing for a while. If we don’t, we gonna lose the ball. It’s gonna go back to New York or the West coast before it comes back to us again. T.I.: That’s true. And the listeners got to open they eyes, minds, and ears to new shit. The listeners got to be receptive to some innovative shit rather than tootin’ they nose up at it until the East coast or the West coast says it’s hot. A lot of times that’s what happens down South, like with my first album. When I dropped that first single “I’m Serious” with Beenie Man and The Neptunes beat, niggas was like, “Where’s he from? Ain’t nobody down here kickin’ it like that.” Pimp C: You was behind the scenes in this game for a long time before niggas actually saw you. Man, when I was going to New York in the early 90s I was fuckin’ with Brand Nubian. People would see us together and that would fuck them up. They were wondering, how the fuck is this nigga from Texas hangin’ with the gods? T.I.: That’s how they be with me and niggas like Jim Jones. Pimp C: I’m down with Jim Jones. I jumped on the remix to “What Mean The World To You” with him and Cam. You know, rappers in New York were receptive to us a long time before the streets in New York were. It was hard back then, man. I remember going to L.A. and doing shows, and people would just stand their with their arms folded. They’d watch the show and never move. We had to hold our composure. And when we came off stage, they’d be like, “We like that shit.” And I’d be like, “Well, why y’all wasn’t moving?” They’d say, “We don’t move in L.A.” [laughing] Shit, T.I., I remember a time when I came to Atlanta and nobody knew us. T.I.: I don’t know where the fuck I was, boy, cause I been down since Too Hard To Swallow. That album was significant to me, because it came out around the same time I jumped out there. Pimp C: You was on the street level with the street niggas. I’m talking about going up in record stores. I’d go to brunch and shit with the record company and they couldn’t understand us. They didn’t know how to market that shit. They didn’t know what to call that shit. I heard KRS-One tell us we wasn’t “hip-hop” for so long, I had to start saying, “You goddamn right. We ain’t.” T.I.: I feel the same way. I don’t feel like it’s the same category. If it is hip-hop, it’s a different division, you know? Pimp C: It’s a hybrid, man. We doing some different shit. But niggas are really proud of you, man. You got support in Texas and all the way across, so keep doing what you do, homie. T.I.: Right on. I appreciate it, homie. JB (moderator): Tell me a little bit about your album. T.I.: The album is called King. We got UGK on there, of course, produced by Mannie Fresh. We got B.G. on there, a track from The Neptunes with Pharrell on there. I just did an extended version of the Kanye West and Paul Wall’s “Drive Slow.” We’re shooting a video for that, which will probably be available on the bonus DVD. I just got the rough cut of the video [for “Front, Back, Side to Side”] back, Pimp. Pimp C: How we look? T.I.: We lookin’ like something, man. We lookin’ like something.