T-Pain (2025)

One Liner: The King of Auto-Tune.

Wikipedia Genre: hip hop, R&B
Home: Tallahassee

Poster Position: Top Quarter - Line 2
Day: Sunday
Both Weekends.

Thoughts:  Fascinating.  I don't know squat about T-Pain.  Like at all.  He's more of a punch line to me, just anytime someone has their Auto-Tune cranked to a million, then it's a T-Pain thing.  Which is sort of too bad, because he seems like a nice dude who is kind of funny.  Like, check out his Tiny Desk show!

Wonderful voice - why does he always shaft it up with the effects???  But I could not name you a single song.  I remember his parts on other people's songs, like Lonely Island's "I'm on a Boat!" but just not any of his own.  And now that I actually listen to him for a while, it dawns on me that he's actually not really a rapper.  He's just an auto-tuned R&B singer.  

Faheem Rashad Najm is originally from Tallahassee, Florida.  He first popped off in 2005 with his debut album Rappa Ternt Sanga.  Since then, he has released five more albums, but his main source of fame and success has been as a feature on others' songs.  FloRida's "Low" has been certified diamond.  Grammy Awards for Kanye's "Good Life" and Jamie Foxx's "Blame It."  Wikipedia says that for a time in 2007, he was featured on four of the top ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.  Impressive.  His stage name is short for Tallahassee Pain, and he apparently chose that because of his hard upbringing in that town.  He was raised in a Muslim household, but apparently didn't care much about religion.  For a short while he was in the group Nappy Headz, but by the time of his first album he was back to being solo.

His top two songs are both from 2007's Epiphany - "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" (780.5 million) and "Bartender" (479.5 million).  Here is that top track, featuring Yung Joc.

Really weird.  I 100% don't know that tune.  For being a huge hit, it just passed me by.  His face looks as Auto-tuned as his voice.  Nothing special to me, but as I have established in the past, I am not an R&B guy.  

He has been married to his wife since 2003, and they have three kids, named: Lyriq, Muziq, and Kaydnz Kodah.  Why do the first two get names derived from Daddy's occupation and the third gets whatever the hell that was?  He is a big gamer, and I've seen some of his most popular stuff from Twitch streams on YouTube, and they are pretty funny.

And his hot ones episode is cracking me up too.

He truly seems like a sweet and likeable guy.  Please don't tell me that he has been cancelled or whatever.

Not his second-most streamed, but I want to give you this other one because the name rules.  "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)" features Mike Jones and has 208.7 million streams.

Kinda funny, but just really not a good song.  "get her over to my crib and do the night thing."  Haha, Mike Jones and his dumb phone number thing.  That is a weak verse.  After plowing through a lot of the most popular songs and those old top albums, I just realize that this is not really my thing!  Just hearing purely Auto-Tune squawking, it really gets painful.  I spent a chunk of today listening, and I need to pull the plug and move on. 

However, I have to recommend the experience of his covers album.  He has two albums of covers that are so fun!  2023's On Top of The Covers includes "War Pigs" "Tennessee Whiskey" and "Don't Stop Believin'" while 2023's live version adds even more goodness like "Shout," "This is How We Do It," and "American Woman."  Haha - "War Pig" freaking jams and while it's not as hard here as I want it to be (compared to the original), it's still a good time.  He almost sounds like Ozzy!  Also, related, dude can freaking SING!  Check out "Don't Stop Believin'" and bask in the lack of Autotune.

His final album is something with Young Cash called Bluez Brothaz, from 2024.  Honestly?  "The Introduction" was kinda awesome and sucked me in.  And then "Biggest Booty" hit with another overload of the damn Auto-Tune.  And even though I rag on it, I can pretty much guarantee you that this show will be freaking fun.  I doubt I'll do it, but the dance party vibes will be very real.