Guns, Feds and Kids: T.I. Returns

• Photos: A Day in the Life of T.I.

TI.'s iPhone is ringing off the hook. In just 20 minutes, as the rapper pilots his white GMC Denali around Atlanta in late July, his mother has called three times, his friend Usher has checked in about a track they're working on and his probation officer wants to discuss the status of his community service. "We're about to hit 500 hours," T.I. says when he hangs up. "It's like a second job. Or a third."

In a deal he cut last March to avoid a decades-long jail sentence for possession of machine guns, T.I. agreed to perform 1,000 hours of community service — mostly speaking engagements with kids — over the course of a year. (He will eventually serve a year in jail and do 500 more hours of service when he gets out.) But he also has his main gig: The multiplatinum MC is kicking into promotion mode for his new album, Paper Trail, which he recorded mainly in his home studio while on house arrest awaiting trial. "When I started recording, the songs were angry," T.I. says. "But as time went on, I had to accept responsibility for the part I played in all this madness."

After swinging by Popeye's for lunch, T.I. heads to DeKalb County Recreation Center. In a gym packed with 200 fidgety kids, he spends the next hour talking about the value of school and steering clear of drugs, gangs and guns. A compelling speaker who peppers his lectures with pop-savvy references to Grand Theft Auto IV, Spider-Man 3 and his own hit singles, he has an easy rapport with the audience: "I've spent most of my life, quite frankly, doing the opposite of a lot of the things I'm telling you," he says. "I've made enough mistakes for all of you."

T.I.'s biggest mistake came on October 13th, 2007, the night of the BET Hip Hop Awards. During rehearsals for the show in Atlanta, where he was scheduled to perform, the MC stopped in the parking lot of a local shopping center to pick up three unregistered machine guns and two silencers that his bodyguard had purchased for him a few days earlier. "I had a feeling in the back of my mind that something wasn't right," T.I. says now. "They weren't talking right. But I thought I was above situations like that. I was on some 'Nah, that can't happen to me' shit."

The gun dealers turned out to be agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. T.I.'s bodyguard had been arrested four days earlier and was cooperating with the police. Agents searched the rapper's car and found three unregistered handguns and half a pound of marijuana. In T.I.'s Atlanta home they found three rifles, two pistols and a revolver. By night's end, T.I. — already a convicted felon for earlier drug and gun charges — was in the custody of federal authorities, facing a lengthy jail sentence. Across town, at the BET Awards, T.I. won a statue for CD of the Year, inspiring fellow winner Common to say, "I salute my guy T.I., wherever he is."