T.I. Plots "Paper Trail" Re-Release With Bonus Tracks

Before he heads to prison after May 19th, T.I. will spend some time in the studio working on new tracks for the re-release of last year's platinum Paper Trail. The rapper tells MTV five tracks will be added to the LP, and he's considering including leaked collaborations "Like I Do" with The-Dream and "My Dear" with Ciara. There's also a leftover verse from Kanye West that was excised from the original Paper Trail to make room for the all-star "Swagga Like Us."

Despite the specter of a 366-day jail term, Tip hasn't stopped recording and working on the Paper Trail reissue. "I'm still in the process of picking the songs," he tells MTV, "but I'm also still recording. ... Through the best of times and through the worst of times, I'm still able to record. It may change the sort of song you do, but you never can tell." Over the past few months a few T.I. recoridngs have surfaced, like Justin Timberlake duet "If I" that Rock Daily wrote about back in December. There are also rumors that T.I. spent Grammy weekend laying down tracks with Dr. Dre.

While no release date has been set, Atlantic Records reps confirmed to MTV that the album's reissue was in the works. As Rock Daily previously reported, T.I. is expected to serve a truncated year-and-a-day prison sentence after pleading guilty to weapons charges and adequately completing the community services requirements of his plea bargain.

Related Stories:

• T.I. Sentenced To One Year and a Day In Prison, Could Serve Less
• Guns, Feds and Kids: T.I. Returns
• Photos: A Day in the Life of T.I.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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