T.I. to Plead Guilty, Get 1,500 Community Service Hours and One Year in Prison

T.I. will plead guilty to a litany of gun charges today after reaching a plea agreement, sources close to the rapper's defense team and the prosecution tell the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The rapper is expected to be sentenced to 1,500 hours of community service followed by about 12 months in prison. Following his arrest on October 13th, T.I. was indicted on weapons charges for owning three machine guns and two silencers (which violated the terms of his probation). Since then, the rapper has been held under $3 million bond and house arrest.

UPDATE: T.I. entered his plea earlier today and made a statement outside the courthouse: "While I'm not looking forward to being incarcerated, I have a long road of redemption to travel. I am dedicated and committed to that." T.I. was sentenced to at least 1,000 hours of community service, a year and one day in prison and fined $100,000. Because the prison sentence exceeds one year, the rapper will be eligible to get fifteen percent of his term reduced for good behavior.

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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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