The Real deal

With his multifaceted personality,he has dabbled in singing,song writing,rapping,producing records and even acting,with the ease of a trapeze artiste. And yet,for musician and rapper Faheem Rasheed Najm T-Pain,the journey from the back alleys of his home town,Tallahassee,to the road of fame has been a long and ardous one. Something that is reflected in his stage name T-pain. “The name comes from my birthplaceTallahassee,where my parents moved before I was born,and the namerepresents my struggle,growing up and trying to break into music,” says the grammy award winning rapper.

T-Pain who will be performing in the city on Sunday June 19 at the Stone Water Grill,shot to fame with his critically acclaimed and successful album Rappa Ternt Sanga. He is known to make use of the auto tune audio processing technique for his performances. And though his music has been styled as ‘Hard ‘n’ B’ he himself doesn’t speak much about his style and prefers to leave it to the audiences to decide.

On his performance in the city,T-Pain says that it is going to be high on energy. “I look forward to my performance here as I know it will be an enthusiastic crowd which will groove to my numbers,” he says adding,“I will be playing all my hits to keep the crowd engaged from the start to the finish. Songs included are Buy U A Drink,Bartender,Hey Baby and Low to name a few.”

The rapper who has worked with artistes like DJ Khaled,Akon,Tay Dizm,Lil Wayne,Kanye West,Young Cash and Travis McCoy believes that all his songs come from real life experiences. “All my inspirations come from what happens in my life. My music is inspired from my surroundings,my perspective and I continue to follow this. I do what feels right to me,” he adds. After having released Rappa Ternt Sanga (2005) Epiphany (2007) Thr33 Ringz (2008) he will be releasing his fourth full length studio album Revolver this year. “Presently I have the Best Love Song,featuring Chris Brown and Booty Wurk garnering good radio play,from the album. And I’m excited to know the reaction of my fans who will hear the rest of the album,” he says adding,“There are some expected features and some not so expected ones in it,so you’ll have to check that out when it releases.”

(Rapper T-Pain will be performing as a part of the Tuborg VH1 Hip Hop hustle,at the Stone Water Grill on Sunday June 19,6 pm onwards)