T-Pain’s talent is respected across many genres, but the performer recently revealed he’d experienced some backlash in one in particular. The artist posted a TikTok video on Jan. 30, stating that he’s dropped his name from writing credits when working on country music due to racism. The two-time Grammy winner started the clip by speaking about his love for all genres of music.
“Good music is good music. I don’t give a f**k where it come from or what style it come in. All the people I know like feel like it’s not cool to listen to other genres of music,” the 39-year-old artist said.
He also highlighted country and gospel as the categories that gifted him his chart-topping melodies.
“I done wrote a lot of country songs,” he continued. “Stopped taking credit for it, because as cool it is to see your name in those credits and sh*t like that, the racism that comes after it is just like, ‘I’ll just take the check. Don’t put me on that sh*t; I’ll just take the check, bro.'”
@tpain It’s cool for people to make and enjoy all types of music. Good music is good music
The TikTok clip isn’t the first time the Florida native has openly discussed his issues with country music. In 2020, he answered some questions from fans while streaming on his Twitch channel.
When asked about his ghostwriting career, he admitted that he had done quite a bit for country artists.
“I write a lot of country music for huge country artists that would rather not have it known that I did it,” he said at the time, laughing to avoid revealing names.
The “Buy You a Drank” artist then slyly dropped the N-word to allude to the possible racism behind the reason they would rather him stay anonymous. The artist recalled living on his tour bus in Nashville for around a year before mentioning that he began working with huge country acts like Taylor Swift, Luke Bryan, Rhett Akins and Dallas Davidson. After acknowledging his contributions to the genre, he made it clear that “he would rather just get the money” going forward.
While we may never know the actual number of country music hits that T-Pain has contributed to, his resume is endless. His 20-plus-year career includes seven studio albums and a string of Billboard Hot 100 hits. His 2005 debut album, Rappa Ternt Sanga, spawned two of his biggest singles, including “I’m Sprung” and “I’m ‘n Luv (Wit a Stripper),” which peaked at No. 8 and No. 5 on the Hot 100, respectively. His follow-up album, 2007’s Epiphany, earned him his first-ever No. 1 single, “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” featuring Yung Joc.
T-Pain is synonymous with using Auto-Tune, a pitch-altering tool that gives artists a robotic tone to their voices. Some of his peers have been vocal about their disapproval of the recording tool. In 2009, Jay-Z released his single “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),” which called out the use of the increasingly popular technology. He directly mentions T-Pain in the lyrics: “You ni**as singing too much/ Get back to rap, you T-Paining too much.”
In 2021, T-Pain responded to Jay-Z’s diss in an interview with Drink Champs. He admitted that he felt slighted by the mention, saying “Anytime somebody said, ‘Auto-Tune,’ I’m the face. So, when you say Auto-Tune is wack, I’m the face.”
Even Usher once told him that “he really f*cked up music for real singers,” which sent him into a four-year depression.
Usher later addressed that conversation in a 2021 interview with Billboard.
“I wouldn’t wish that on any person,” he said about T-Pain’s mental health struggles. “Private conversations for me have always been intended to uplift. But when or if people get pieces of it, they can always have some other interpretation. But we’ve spoken since and we’re good.”
