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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."
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So what the hell was he doing with all those guns? The MC's answer begins with the death of his best friend, Philant Johnson, in a hail of gunfire outside a Cincinnati club in 2006. Suddenly, T.I. saw danger — for himself, his girlfriend and his six kids — around every corner, and he started building an arsenal: "After my partner died, I kinda had a 'take matters into my own hands' mentality. It provided a certain sense of paranoia. When you're paranoid, and you've already been through certain things, your judgment tends to be jaded."
T.I. grew up in the gritty Bankhead section of Atlanta and was selling crack on street corners by the time he was 12. At 17, as he started to build his rap career with detailed, realistic portrayals of life on the street, he was arrested on felony drug-distribution charges. Even as he became a multiplatinum rap star, T.I. maintained close ties with the friends and associates he had on the street — a situation that, he acknowledges, can breed resentment.
On Paper Trail, rhymes about guns, drugs and violence are conspicuously absent. The rapper reintroduced himself to the hip-hop community by releasing the album track "No Matter What," a deeply personal, defiant statement in which the MC recalls his rocky two-year stretch during which his girlfriend suffered a late-term miscarriage: "I lost my partner and my daughter in the same year/Somehow I rise above my problems and remain here."
As part of the healing process, T.I. reached out to friends who have experienced loss, including Eminem. "When [Eminem's friend] Proof died, that was a connection: that he lost his best partner and I lost my best partner," says T.I. "He was calling me and keeping my spirits up and letting me know I can get through this. He said, 'Man, I had gotten in so much trouble, and everybody thought it was over for me too. You know, if I can get through what I went through, you can get through what you're going through.' "
After going through the arrest and trial, T.I. says, he no longer fears for his life. "Ain't nothing like having the feds watch you," he says. "I'm safe." But in a deeper way, he says, the experience has helped him reconnect with his faith. "I was walking with guns," he says. "This situation has taught me that it's better to walk with God and just have faith that his will supersedes any stupidity that could go on around you."
T.I. certainly talks the talk of a changed man. In his speaking engagements, which are being filmed by MTV for a possible reality show, he uses his movie career to demonstrate the value of hard work. He talks about how, for ATL, he had to get up every morning at 5 a.m. to take roller-skating lessons. And about how the hard work he put into that project helped him land bigger roles — first in last year's American Gangster and now in Bone Deep, which he's filming opposite Matt Dillon. "The road to success is filled with things you're not going to want to do," he tells the kids. "The sooner you realize that, the sooner you get paid."
[From Issue 1061 — September 18, 2008]
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