T.I. in the New York Times
rootlesscosmo
12,848 Posts
April 12, 2006The Enterprising Rapper T. I. Looks Beyond Hip-Hop By LOLA OGUNNAIKEWhen T. I., the Atlanta-bred rapper, arrived on the music scene in 2001, he was confident that he would leap from fledgling nobody to superstar somebody in no time. Arista Records, then home to acts like OutKast, TLC and Pink, signed him; the Neptunes, the hit-making duo, produced his first single, "I'm Serious"; and the popular hip-hop director Chris Robinson directed his first video. "I thought I was going to be the biggest thing since sliced bread," the singer, born Clifford Harris, said in a Southern drawl slower than a Sunday afternoon stroll. But his single failed to connect with audiences, and Arista quickly dropped him. "When it didn't blow up, it was like, whoa, we weren't expecting this," he said.Now, though, T. I., at 25, is enjoying the biggest moment of his career. He had an album and a film released in the same week late last month. The film, "ATL," earned him respectable reviews for his acting debut, opening at No. 3 at the box office.The album, "King," his fourth, had the biggest opening week of the year, hitting the top of the Billboard charts and selling more than 500,000 copies. The album's first single, "What You Know," was not available for downloading from services like iTunes or sold in stores; only Sprint cellphone users had access to the song. "We wanted to incentivize people to buy the entire album," said Craig Kallman, chairman and chief executive of Atlantic, which has a joint venture deal with T. I.'s record label, Grand Hustle."King," named for T. I.'s youngest son (he is a father of four), also was positively reviewed. "Memorable refrains, hard beats, elegant rhymes: this album succeeds mainly by sticking to a simple but effective formula," Kelefa Sanneh wrote this month in The New York Times. Over a recent Chinese dinner at the Upper East Side celebrity restaurant Philippe with his seven-man entourage ??? made up of childhood buddies, a publicist and a D.J. ??? he described his goal simply: "to get a piece of everything that's making money." His business portfolio, overseen by relatives and friends, includes a construction business, a car customization shop and a club, all in Atlanta.But he had more than a paycheck in mind when he decided to make the leap to acting. "If I do a video, I have you four minutes," said the rapper, who stands just over 5 feet 6 inches. "If I do a movie, I have you two hours, and I'm 20 feet tall. You can't beat that." He is also thinking about the long term. "You can't be 40 years old trying to rap," he said, "but you can act in your 70's."Unlike many other urban films that begin in the hood and end tragically, "ATL," a coming-of-age drama set on the rough side of Atlanta, has a tender sensibility and a parent-friendly PG-13 rating. T. I. plays Rashad, a pensive illustrator who dreams of one day having his own comic strip in the local paper. He is forced to become the man of the house after his parents die in a car accident. When not doodling in his notebook or fighting to keep his younger brother from falling in with a charismatic, Cognac-swilling drug dealer (played by Big Boi, one half of the rap duo OutKast), he skates at the local roller rink with his crew of friends. T. I. acknowledged that the film, on the whole, is far rosier than the street life he has known. Rashad's younger brother, Ant, an inept petty drug dealer, "probably would have been killed for the mistakes he was making, where I'm from," he said. And as a teenager, he said, he was nothing like the strait-laced character he portrays. Those familiar with his lyrics know that before music, drug dealing was his primary occupation. "I was more outspoken, more 'by any means necessary,' more about the now and not necessarily the future," he explained. T. I. said that he was adamant about not playing a glorified version of himself, unlike such artists as 50 Cent and Eminem in their first films. "This was not about my life story; it's about acting," said the rapper, whose previous acting experience consisted of a lead in a second-grade production of "The Nutcracker."Learning how to skate was difficult, but learning the ways of Hollywood was harder. "In music, when they say the day starts at 9, that means 10:30 or 11," he said. "In film, when they say the day starts at 9, it means the day starts at 8:45." "That transition was difficult at first," he said, flashing a swoon-inducing smile, "because I'm not used to having people tell me what to do." T. I., who grew up in Atlanta's rough-and-tumble Bankhead section, said that in elementary school he sold candy to his classmates, making as much as $50 a day. By junior high he had jumped from selling snacks to peddling crack. After several run-ins with the law, he decided to pursue a career in rap. And when "I'm Serious" didn't soar up the charts, he committed himself to establishing a core Southern audience. "Our video wasn't playing, and we only had radio in the Southeast market, so you work those five cities to death," he said. "We went everywhere in the South, from Atlanta to Macon to Augusta to Columbia to Jacksonville, Fla."He also began releasing mix tapes. Soon he was selling out shows in hole-in-the-wall clubs. With the success, he started thinking bigger, he said. "We felt like we had been functioning as an independent label, so for the next album we weren't going to settle for anything less than a joint venture" ??? in other words, splitting the profits 50-50. So he asked L. A. Reid, then chief executive of Arista, to either give him $2 million up front and a joint venture deal or let him out of his contract. Mr. Reid chose the latter. "While it was an amicable split, I wasn't at all happy about his departure," Mr. Reid said. "I thought his stardom was inevitable." T. I. asked Def Jam for a similar deal, and it, too, turned him down, he said. Mr. Kallman at Atlantic was more amenable to a deal, but he recognized that it was a gamble. "A joint venture with a new artist that had been dropped and hadn't sold a lot of records," he said. "It was a unique situation." One that was further complicated in 2004, when the rapper's past caught up with him. He was jailed for seven months after violating his probation from a late-90's drug charge. It could not have come at a worse time. His career, which was heating up with the hit "Rubber Band Man," from his second album, "Trap Muzik," stalled temporarily. In recent years, radio-friendly Southern rap has dominated the music charts, with Atlanta-based artists like Ludacris, Young Jeezy and Lil Jon and veterans like OutKast and Jermaine Dupri doing particularly well. Still, T. I., not known for his modesty, calls himself the King of the South, and while some of his peers have taken issue ??? he's had high-profile disputes with Lil Flip and Ludacris ??? it is becoming increasingly hard to deny his claim to the throne. Not that he's waiting to be crowned. "Everyone has their own opinion," he said shrugging, "and I obviously have mine."
Comments
Hes just talking smack.
i wouldnt go that far. Im pretty sure 40 is the cutoff. If you rapping past 40 its gotta just be cause you want to, not cause you have to so you can eat.
I think even ghostface would tell you it aint really a good look.
If you've still got it, age is irrelevant.
i second that emotion
perfect!