On his debut album, T-Pain says he made music people wanted to hear. He was proven correct when nearly one million fans purchased 2005’s “Rappa Ternt Sanga,” and when he saw two of his singles – “I’m N Luv (Wit A Stripper)” and “I’m Sprung” – reach the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.
But for his sophomore album, “Epiphany,” T-Pain says his focus was not on what people wanted to hear but about him being an artist.
“When you record what you think people want to hear, you’re following a trend,” T-Pain explains to andPOP. “On the first album I was going into clubs and listening to the radio and listening to mix tapes and seeing what songs were getting the most response and the most fans and I was just making songs like those.
“Now I want to be on my own so I’m just making songs coming out of my heart. I’m just not following the trend.”
He’s not worried, though, that the change in his mindset – and therefore a change in his music – could alienate some fans. And he shouldn’t be.
When the first-week sales are officially announced later this week, T-Pain will debut in the top five with sales exceeding 100,000 copies. (Update: T-Pain debuted at No. 1 on the album sales charts.)
He had no worries because his philosophy was that he’d hook them with the first album and then offer them something a little different with album No. 2.
“People are cool with me. It’s just my personality in music form,” T-Pain says, on the line from New York City. “Every time I meet someone, they tell me I’m a great dude. Great dudes make great music.”
The music on “Epiphany” isn’t drastically different than his debut album. There’s still the crunk-inspired style of R&B that hooked fans two years ago. Instead of flirting with a stripper, he’s offering them drinks (The first two singles are “Buy U a Drank” and “Bartender.”).
But T-Pain says his fans will be listening to a new mature man.
“I was recording songs for my album and I was like, ‘what the hell am I doing,’” he says, explaining the album’s name. “I just had to do something different. I was just recording the same old stuff from my old album. It just dawned on me that I needed to do something different and be more mature.”
The maturity is evident on the track called “Suicide.”
“It’s saying that people commit suicide everyday, not by killing themselves but by doing stupid shit, just doing retarded stuff that they know can end up killing them. Unprotected sex, you get the wrong person with that, that can definitely kill you; that’s suicide.”
T-Pain looked to personal experiences for inspiration for the song.
“My younger life, when I was doing crazy crap, like getting out of school and hanging with the wrong people and doing stuff with the wrong girls, it’s just ridiculous. That all could have killed me. I could have been dead from doing stupid shit.
“I just got bored. I just had to move on. It was too much. All the shit that was happening to me just happened too many times. There was a natural [thought of] let me get the hell out of here.”
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In life (and in the hip-hop industry especially), there’s an unwritten code: as you approach the veteran years of your career, you’re expected to lose a step in your game.
