T.I. Preps For Life Behind Bars With "Dead And Gone" Video

From his appearance at the Grammys to his MTV show to his recent Hot 100 chart climb, there's no question T.I. is making the most of his time before he heads to prison on weapons charges March 27th. And that means "Dead and Gone," Tip's collaboration with Justin Timberlake (the duo performed it at the Grammy Awards), could be the last clip we see from T.I. for about a 12-month stretch.

T.I. goes the reflective route with the video, conjuring a theme and style similar to Johnny Cash's video for his cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." Whereas "Hurt" featured Cash looking back over his life with the specter of death before him, "Dead and Gone" shows T.I. reminiscing about Atlanta and the life he's temporarily leaving before going to the Big House, which is ultimately where the third act of the video takes us. The rest of the time, T.I. and JT hang out in a pretty badass old school Chevrolet, driving along country roads in desolate scenery. It looks sort of like No Country For Old Men, except without any of the blood and bad haircuts.

Despite the downer nature of the song, fans are responding to it — "Dead and Gone" rose from Number Nine to Two on this week's Hot 100 chart behind Flo Rida's record-breaking "Right Round." You can follow the last weeks of T.I.'s freedom on MTV these days, where the rapper is appearing on the docu-series Road to Redemption.

Related Stories:

• T.I. Counts Down Days Until Jail on MTV's "Road to Redemption"
• Justin Timberlake, T.I. Team Up For "If I"
• 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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