T-Pain talks new music, being canceled on social media, Chris Brown, Verzuz and more – REVOLT TV

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Singer-songwriter T-Pain revolutionized an entire movement when it comes to autotune. Bartender, Im Sprung, Im N Luv (Wit a Stripper), Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin), and Cant Believe It are just a few off his endless catalog of hits.

While most artists can only hope their music has a lifelong impact on the consumer, the Nappy Boy Entertainment founder makes it look effortless. Beyond his own solo records, his feature game is one of the most impressive in the industry. His distinct vocals and coveted range can make any record a smash. T-Pain also boasts two Grammy wins: 2008s Good Life with Kanye West for Best Rap Song and 2010s Blame It with Jamie Foxx for Best R&B Performance by a Duo. His most recent single Wake Up Dead featuring Chris Brown reminded fans that hell never lose his ear for good music and his ability to create bangers.

REVOLT caught up with T-Pain to discuss new music, his friendship with Chris Brown, his secret to marriage, the epic VERZUZ battle against Lil Jon, and more. Read below!

Hows quarantine life treating you?

Its life. Its the best version of it for me right now. Me getting to stay home, thats awesome. I hate traveling. I hate everything about it. If I could do work from home and everybodys loving it right now, I can do interviews from home too? I dont have to drive to L.A. to do a 10-minute interview? Oh, yes!

Congrats on your new single Wake Up Dead with Chris Brown.

Thank you, that s**t came out f**king dope. I love it, Im very excited.

Was that done in the studio youre in now?

Yup, absolutely. Ive only had it for two months, so it was definitely in here. Definitely during all this crazy s**t. I kept building on it, sent it to Chris. Chris did it in his crib, which is way doper than mine in my opinion. Chris Browns house is out of f**king control, and Ive only seen it through FaceTime. Im jealous as hell. We both did it in comfortable environments, thats what brought these verses out of us.

The record was inspired by Scary Movie 3. What do you like about that movie?

I always thought its a great clip. You always have your favorite lines and quotes from these movies. My artist Chayo Nash and I were f**king around in the studio. I was playing beats I was making, the Wake Up Dead beat came on. I started f**king around saying, Wake up dead, wake up dead, actually making a joke at first. S**t started coming together, were like, Wait a minute. Dude, Ima record that s**t!

Is there a deeper meaning behind the record?

It was a deeper meaning behind the record before Chris got on it. The whole thing was about cancel culture, how you can make a mistake one day, then you can wake up and your Twitter just killed you. You dont exist to anybody anymore. You can be on top of the game, but you f**k around and do something that somebody on Twitter doesnt like, [and] all of a sudden your whole careers dead because of one thing you did. You wake up non-existent. You wake up not even a person anymore.

When I say, I dont want to be the one to wake up without a heartbeat, trust me youre gonna love this, stay in your seat to where you have to try to explain what happened, thats the stay in your seat, youre gonna love this. Tell me youre gonna love me and Ill admit defeat. It aint that deep. When you break down the lyrics, you can see its really about cancel culture. You can wake up dead from one thing the day before.

How many times would you say that happened in your career?

Probably about six so far.

Thats frustrating.

Its frustrating but I already dont take peoples feelings into consideration, so it doesnt do anything for me. I give people three days and they move onto whatever else theyre going to be mad about for a week. Its not that hard to do. You get canceled for three days, then people are like, What else are we mad about? We got rid of him. Who else is on the chopping block? Its fake anger most of the time.

These are normal f**king things that everybodys doing and thinking. If you got a bigger platform, they feel youre not supposed to think and do those things. Its minute s**t. The fucking cereal thing with Kylie, let her eat her cereal, my n*gga. Everybody who ate cereal dry out the box, youre mad because shes pouring it into a bowl now? Now you dont like her anymore? What the f**k? (laughs)

I feel like in your position, you cant really ever be canceled. Were giving you your flowers!

I can be canceled by certain friend groups. Theres a group of seven people who always tweet each other like, Youre canceled. If one of their friends still like me after the other six dont like me, theyre getting kicked out the friend group. I dont give a s**t about your friend group, thats not my concern. Is my music still good? Cool. Thats all I give a s**t about. Im not trying to lose that. Theres thousands of other artists, please go listen to somebody else. Id rather go do that.

Do you use the block button?

No, I use the mute button. The block button gives people satisfaction. The mute button is when I can get you out of my life without you even f**king knowing. Its going to annoy you. Thats how you move on. Once you dont f**k with somebody no more, get them out your life immediately.

How does working with CB now compare to 2007, when you guys created Kiss Kiss?

Its always been the same, love all the way through. He has a beard now, which is weird... Anytime we get together, whether it be face to face, over email, FaceTime, its always love. The thing we try to switch up on is make sure that we keep a diverse set of records. Not so much, Well this worked last time, so lets do another Kiss Kiss. Weve never said that to each other, Lets do Kiss Kiss part two! No, no. We both have so much different kinds of music, lets keep making music.

What was T-Pain like back then?

Drunk, a lot of drunk (laughs). All the time. As soon as Chris Brown turned 21, he still didnt drink yet. That was weird. I used to always try to put Chris on to different liquors. I was always turnt up. I dont remember the first half of my career.

Did you both anticipate your music careers would take off the way it did?

Not at all. Well, Chris probably did. Hes light skin, so thats how they think all the time (laughs). Me, Im like, Somebody like one of my songs. All I had was Im Sprung at the time. I thought, Dude, hopefully I got a second one they like. Im In Love With A Stripper came, then Buy U A Drink, all these other things. Me and Chris kept shelling out hits together. We signed on the same day, we got sent to the same video for our first video to be in. It was mind-blowing to see how far things would go up. To see even after me taking a break, I could still come back and chill with Chris after hes been hit after hit after hit. Hes still bringing smashes out. I could still be a fellow musician and still be accepted in this, it makes our friendship all the better.

Your debut song Im Sprung was dedicated to your wife, who you married in 2003. Whats your secret to staying married, especially in the industry?

I dont make any decisions. Pain, what you want to eat? Nothing, Im not even hungry. But, if youre hungry, Im hungry as s**t. Where you want to go? You want to go to the club? I dont even like clubs anymore, but if you want to go... I make sure shes comfortable. She knows what she wants in life. Shes not just an artists wife, she has her own identity. Anything she wants to do, thats what it is.

Thats why I dont force her face on Instagram, I dont try to show her off to everybody. Thats not for yall. Babe, put this $2,000 dress on even though were chillin in the house. Make sure everybody sees it. You post it on yours, Ill repost it. Let everybody know were a dope couple. We know were good. We know what we got over here, thats a big part of it. To not seek validation for our marriage and our relationship from outside sources, thats a huge f**king thing.

What was the highlight of the Verzuz battle with Lil Jon?

The fact that Lil Jons not an angry person, I knew it was going to be fun. It was fun. Me and Lil Jon both know what we do, we both got hits. Were both super important to the industry, so it wasnt an Im better than you thing. Its look how great we are. Thats more important than saying who won. Who had this many hits? Bro, look at all the s**t we did. It was a celebration.

What did it mean to be one of the few artists whos well-respected enough to participate in these battles?

It feels great man because first I was commanding and looking for it. When it comes naturally, you can sit back and do your thing naturally, and people still come out the woodwork, and tell you how great you are, how inspirational you are, and how important you are to the game. That feels a lot better than, Yo, yall n**gas give me my respect! Im the first one to do this. When you do that, youre fishing for everything and some of it may not be genuine. If Im chillin, being humble and people still doing it, that means its been real.

Do you feel songwriters are finally getting enough credit?

Verzuz is doing that a lot now. Verzuz is making people pay attention to who did what, making people go back and look at credits. When we had those physical booklets that came with CDs and you could see writers and producers, it was definitely a better time. People actually knew who theyre dissing or why theyre dissing somebody. Its actually easier to look up now, but its easier to ignore. Its a weird time right now.

How do you view the current use of autotune?

Its good right now, were at a healthy amount of it. At one point, it was so flooded and out of control to where even cartoons were using it. Its gone down some because it started being overused. Now, not only [are] the right amount of people using it, but the right people [are] using it. People figured out that some of yall dont sound right. Youd be better off without it, leave it alone. Those people have let it go. The people who actually sound dope with it are using it.

Talk about your new single Bingo with Rich The Kid.

Shout out to Jetsonmade. Its a dope summer song. I was trying to wait until it was time for people to get back outside to enjoy parties, but no better time like the present. Might as well drop it. One of them summer things I came up with, [I] had to go get Rich The Kid. Rich The Kid did his thing. Its going to be another one of them hits.

What made you want Rich on the record?

Ive been liking Rich The Kid for a while. I like his style. I like how he puts his verses together in order to come up with his own cohesive thing. Whenever he comes on the song, its his part of the song. You can play my part of Bingo in the club, then later on you can play Richs part of Bingo in the club. People wont even know its the same song. He makes it his own and I wanted something different. I didnt want this song to sound the same all the way through, Ive been noticing that about a lot of music lately. Same rhythms, same melodies. Rich The Kid was a good way to break it up.

Anything else you want to let us know?

Dont use Franks RedHot and wipe your eyes, ever. Precious Stones the album coming. Im done with that, were waiting on times to get better. A lot of Nappy Boy artists coming. Were dropping Chayo Nash first, Young Cash, JAOH, Piao. A1 from Love And Hip Hop, we got him on the label. We run it up. Nappy Boy Gaming is about to jump off, Nappy Boy Drifting. Get ready for Nappy Boy everything.

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T-Pain talks new music, being canceled on social media, Chris Brown, Verzuz and more - REVOLT TV

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero