TIA: If the 2000s had a signature sound, much of it was thanks to T-Pain.
TIA: His distinct style was hard to overlook, not only because of his frequent use of Auto-Tune
but also how he blurred the line between rapping and singing, which established him as one
of the most unforgettable figures in music.
TIA: Rob Markman sat down with T-Pain on March 19th for the first Genius Level of 2019,
to celebrate the legacy of one of the most influential artists in hip-hop and R&B.
ROB: At the end of the day your DNA is kind of on the biggest artist’s today.
T-PAIN: People can say I was listening to this guy, I wasn’t even listening to you.
Yeah but that guy got his shit from me so…..
ROB: The DNA is in there.
TIA: T-Pain began as a member of the Nappy Headz, a Tallahassee rap group that gave him
his start in hip-hop.
T-PAIN: Yeah this ya boy T-Pain aka Teddy Penderass down representing Tallehoe 8 Mile
road to the fullest, dawg.
TIA: After a few local hits, T-Pain quickly signed with Akon’s Konvict Music as a solo
act and dropped his debut studio album, ‘Rapper Ternt Sanga’ in 2005 featuring
"I'm Sprung,” which began as a song for Akon.
T-PAIN: I showed it to him and at the time I think he was doing stuff with Jeezy I think
he had the “Sole Survivor” joint and stuff like that so he was on a real super gangster
thing at the time so really he was like I don’t make songs for women,
I don't make songs for girls.
It’s not gonna be about a chick. It's not gonna be nothin. Bring me some gangster shit and I was like cool
let me get that CD back real quick?
TIA: Since then, T-Pain has had 46 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with fifteen
Top 10 hits, and three No. 1’s, including his features on tracks like “Low.”
T-PAIN: I feel like when people listen to a song, you really participate with the parts
that sounds like it’s a bunch of people doing it, because it sounds like it’s supposed
to be a crowd and those are the ones you stick the mic out in the crowd and everyone knows
to say that part.
TIA: It was on songs like these where T-Pain established his trademark sound, thanks in
part to his generous use of the audio processor, Auto-Tune.
TIA: Auto-Tune gave musicians the ability to distort and often correct the pitch of
an artist’s voice in a song.
It had been used before in hip-hop, most notably Tupac’s 1995 track, “California Love”
featuring Roger Troutman, an autotune OG.
TIA: But T-Pain took it to the next level.
T-PAIN: I can firmly say that nobody’s looked into AutoTune the way I have.
I studied AutoTune two years before I used it once.
And I know it happened too fast after I used it, niggas just started coming out of nowhere.
TIA: But T-Pain’s obsession with Auto-Tuned vocals was actually inspired by a remix to
J. Lo’s 1999 track, “If You Had My Love.”
T-PAIN: I heard it on a Jennifer Lopez song it was a Dark Child remix of “If You Had
"If You Had My Love.”
And she only used it for a second in the whole thing.
TIA: T-Pain had found the tone he was going for, and the results were clear.
T-PAIN: My first album didn’t have that much Auto-Tune on it.
My second album was full of Auto-Tune.
Second album went double platinum.
First album still sitting at gold I’m probably gonna keep doing this one…
TIA: But whether or not others in the music industry wanted to admit it, T-Pain’s new
Auto-Tuned sound was heard on a range of other artist’s projects, including Kanye West’s
‘808s and Heartbreak’ in 2008.
T-PAIN: I just helped him out and showed him what feelings I had making my first album
and that kind of just migrated over to ‘808s and Heartbreak.’
KANYE: If people have a major problem with Auto-Tune or me singing or me getting my ideas
out then that’s too bad.
TIA: And then Jay-Z released “Death of Auto-Tune” in 2009.
TIA: Hov wasn’t clowning T-Pain’s success--he was really telling the singer’s
copycats to be more original--the public still turned on Pain despite so many other artists
using his blueprint.
T-PAIN: In all honesty just like Kanye said, he just had a better marketing plan.
He said you ain’t market it right is what happened.
I’m like, Hey as long as I got something to do with it, I’m fine.
I know in my heart where all this came from, man.
TIA: But now, nearly ten years later, the tides have turned and it’s easy to see Pain’s
influence on pop music as most rappers have tried their hand at carrying a digitized note.
TIA: We’ve heard everyone from Snoop Dogg…
TIA: To Travis Scott…
TIA: To Future…
TIA: ...use some heavy Auto-Tune on their own tracks.
T-PAIN: More and more people started using it and I was like I’m not gonna stop first,
for sure.
You’re not about to kick me out of my shit.
TIA: But besides the tools he used to distort his voice, what made T-Pain’s hits even
more noticeably different was his ability to transform from rapper to singer and everything
in between.
T-PAIN: I switched over to singing because I didn’t wanna follow the trend I didn’t
wanna do what everybody was expecting me to do I wanted to do my own thing.
TIA: Back in 2005,‘Rapper Ternt Sanga,’ gave fans their very first taste of those
skills, and jump started his place in music as an artist who could do both.
T-PAIN: Coming from Tallahassee at that time if you were tryna sing when everybody else
was tryna rap you was soft.
It was lost on everybody that I wanted to sing especially looking how I did.
TIA: Today in hip-hop, there are countless artists who blur the line between rapping
and singing but T-Pain was undoubtedly one of the first.
TIA: And with such a wide rage of characteristics that make T-Pain stand out, in the end,
he wants to be remembered for one simple thing.
T-PAIN: There will be many more of me but I just wanna be one of them.
Just a good person.
TIA: For more on T-Pain’s influence, check out his full Genius Level interview on our
YouTube page.
TIA: I’m Tia with Genius News bringing you the meaning and the knowledge behind the music.