Like just about every other working musician, T-Pain likes to complain about the state of the record business — sales are down, streaming royalties are low, every star has to tour to keep making money. 'The music industry sucks right now,' he says. 'It's stupid, man. Right now, it's just supply and demand — that's pretty much all there is right now.'
But unlike other working musicians, T-Pain can soothe himself with things like his fleet of 12 luxury cars, not counting the 24 he recently sold, including a Bugatti for $1 million. (One of its four radiators leaked anti-freeze and would have cost $90,000 to fix.) Radiohead's Thom Yorke called Spotify 'the last desperate fart of a dying corpse,' but T-Pain, 28, the singer-producer born Faheem Najm, is doing OK. 'The royalties aren't actually bad for that — not for me,' T-Pain says, by phone from a tour stop in Calgary, Canada. 'Cause I got 1 billion songs on all of that. It's bad if you got two singles in your lifetime! Then, yeah, that sucks for you. I got over 500 songs on that thing, so I'm fine.'
When Auto-Tune was launched, everyone wanted in, and of course they did. In an interview from 2009, he told the Seattle Times that he’d first heard the effect on a song by Jennifer Lopez.
Jennifer Lopez Auto Tuneup
T-Pain is prone to exaggeration — he has claimed for years that he was part of 14 number-one hits in 2008 alone, but the list includes only rapper Flo Rida's 'Low.' But it's hard to overstate his influence on pop, R&B; and hip-hop during the late 2000s, when he produced or sang on hits by Kanye West, Chris Brown, Pitbull, Ne-Yo, Akon and dozens of others. During that period, regular radio listeners might have had a vague feeling that robots were following them around, as T-Pain's signature style was a studio trick called Auto-Tune, a way of treating a singer's voice so it sounds eerily mechanical.
Born in Tallahassee — the 'T' in T-Pain stands for his hometown — 8-year-old Faheed began playing music after his father brought home a keyboard he'd found on the roadside. At 10, he built a studio in his bedroom. In his mid-teens, he joined a rap crew called Nappy Headz, who 'borrowed' a hook from Khia's 'My Neck, My Back (Lick It)' as the backbone for a song called 'Robbery,' and they toured their home state and region.
It was Jennifer Lopez's 'If You Had My Love,' remixed by super-producer Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins, that revealed to the singer his technological future. The remix used Auto-Tune 'for like a second,' T-Pain recalls. He told himself: 'I gotta find that.'
T-Pain learned everything he could about Auto-Tune, a computer program invented by scientists at Scotts Valley, Calif.-based Antares Audio Technologies. Producers used it subtly to correct singers' pitches for years, until Cher's unashamedly robotic 'Believe' became a smash in 1998 and brought the technology out of the closet. 'I searched for it for two years, and I studied it for two years,' he says. 'I actually talked to the dude that invented it. I wanted to know how it worked, how it happened and why it worked.'
Obsessed with hip-hop but lacking rap skills, T-Pain broke into the music business as a singer. He put out 'Rappa Ternt Sanga' in 2005 and appeared on hits by West, R. Kelly and numerous others, then peaked with his solo hit 'Buy U a Drank' two years later. In a genre where stars are obsessed with a certain cool detachment, T-Pain appeared in a top hat and happily rambled through interviews. Although he has three children, he often boasts of his wife's willingness to engage in threesomes with strippers they meet at clubs.
'It was pretty crazy,' he says of his peak period. 'I had to promote all those singles. I had to be there for each video shoot, and I had to be there for everybody's promo.'
Eventually, the T-Pain bubble burst. Singers and rappers pushed back on Auto-Tune — most notably Jay Z, who put out a 2009 single called 'D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),' disparaging T-Pain by name. (Studios continued to use it, frequently, however.)
It was a tough time. 'People use you, then they do the best they can to avoid you,' he says. 'I got so many people that owe me favors, and so many people that I've done (expletive) for free. At the same time, that's human nature — that's how people are. That's normal I just didn't want to accept that. I was not raised to do people like that.'
Today, he's dribbling out singles and videos (including the new 'Up Down (Do This All Day),' co-starring rapper B.o.B.) and appears well on his way to a comeback. 'I've got over 100 songs right now for the album. I'm just not in a big rush to release the album,' he says. 'I can be touring on singles for the rest of my life basically right now.' (After the interview, his publicist hastily calls back to correct him — yes, there will be an album.)
Most music stars, these days, must tour to make money. But does T-Pain really need it? 'Not whatsoever at all!' he says with a laugh. 'I can't sit at home, either. I can't sit still. ... It's a necessity, just for my brain — I just have to be on the road. I'm home so much. My kids probably get tired of me. They probably want a break from me, too.'
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When: 7:30 p.m. Friday
Jennifer Lopez Auto Tune List
Where: University of Illinois-Chicago Forum, 725 W. Roosevelt Road
Lopez Auto Sales
Tickets: $35-$55; 312-413-9875 or ticketmaster.com