Rappa Ternt Sanga, was released in 2005. It was a debut album that did quite well. Peaking at number one, on the Billboard top two hundred, we can find a second studio album release titled Epiphany. The year two thousand and eight brought with it a third album, by the same prominent artist. The name of the album is “Three Ringz”. Along with artists Kanye West and Jamie Foxx, T-Pain has won two Grammy Awards and is the founder of the record label Nappy Boy Entertainment.
Signed to Young Money Entertainment, Faheem Najim, also known as T-Pain, is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, and actor. To be clear. We are talking about the same person. This young artist has used the autotune pitch correction effect extensively, to the point that people associate the effect with his name. After leaving the rap group Nappy Headz, our featured artist says he wanted to start something new. That’s more or less what he did. Although the autotune effect was pioneered by Herbie Handcock, Stevie Wonder, Peter Frampton, and others, the effect has recently become synonymous, with the name T-Pain. People now call it “the T-Pain effect.” This sound is paralleled by a dynamic stage presence. In my opinion, the first impression of him resembles Flavor Flav, from the rap group Public Enemy. He sports the top hat, white sunglasses minus the watch around his neck. That’s good enough because the little brother has a different song phrase of his own.
What makes a T-Pain song so magnetic, irresistible and haunting? Personally, I think it’s the rhythm mixed with a guttural approach to the lyrics. Its main theme is usually something basic and domestic, from a “sophisticated ghetto perspective”. Hip Hop has become sophisticated, just like Jazz and Blues. When understanding Hip Hop and contemporary culture, we find different levels of the so-called “low down”. This is where the word pain supposedly comes from, in his name. Low feelings cause low music. Here’s a boy who got his start in music at age 3, in Tallahassee, Florida. He wasn’t exactly a bed of roses, milk, and honey. Traditionally pain generates an expression that becomes art and even an entire art form. Fortunately for the world, our featured artist rose from all kinds of difficulties in the American South. He is bringing us exciting entertainment.
The song “Take Your Shirt Off” has a cast of about a hundred people screaming and dancing. It’s extremely impressive as long as you’re not intimidated by profanity. T-Pain represents today’s American youth and his songs make today’s youth jubilant.
