Faheem Rasheed Najm (born September 30, 1985), better known as T-Pain (short for Tallahassee Pain), is an American singer, rapper, record producer, multi-instrumentalist and dancer. He began his career as a rapper in the group Nappy Headz in 2004. In 2005, he released his debut album Rappa Ternt Sanga which reached number 33 on the Billboard top 200. He won a Grammy in 2008 with Kanye West for the single "Good Life" and another in 2010 for the single "Blame It" with Jamie Foxx. He is most known for his extensive use of Auto-Tune, and also for being in every song on the radio that Pitbull & David Guetta aren't already in. At one point in late 2007, he was featured on four top ten singles on the Billboard Top 100 chart.
In 2018-2019, he participated in the first season of The Masked Singer as the Monster, and won first place.
Discography:
Albums
- Rappa Ternt Sanga (2005)
- Epiphany (2007)
- Thr33 Ringz (2008)
- RevolveЯ (2011)
- Stoicville: The Phoenix (2013)
- T-Pain Presents Happy Hour: The Greatest Hits (2014)
- OBLiViON (2017)
- 1UP (2019)
- On Top Of The Covers (2023)
Mixtapes
- Pr33 Ringz (2008)
- Prevolver (2011)
- Stoic (2012)
- The Iron Way (2015)
- T-Wayne (2017) (with Lil Wayne)
- Everything Must Go, Vol. 1 (2018)
- Everything Must Go, Vol. 2 (2018)
Tropes:
- Adam Westing:
- Whenever he makes a guest appearance on a TV show, whether As Himself or otherwise, chances are high that he'll play a laid-back party dude who speaks with auto-tune. Taken to particularly absurd extremes when he appeared on The Eric Andre Show babbling more-or-less gibberish to the tune of "The Star-Spangled Banner" while firing a gun into the air for no reason. (He was still one of the least absurd parts of that particular program and segment, though.)
- His work with The Lonely Island and Taylor Swift also had him parodying the songs he usually appears on and plays straight.
- Auto-Tune: Probably one of the Trope Codifiers of it with current rappers. Actually used well, since he deliberately overuses it to make his vocals sound metallic, rather than just to cover his mistakes. Which makes his victory as The Monster in Season 1 of The Masked Singer using his natural voice all the more impressive.
- Battle Rapping:
- He took part in a rap battle against Lonzo Ball in the TNT series Drop the Mic. He won.
- He also made a well-received special guest appearance in a season-5 episode of Epic Rap Battles of History.
- Black and Nerdy:
- He randomly decided to start a Twitch streaming channel one day while he was on tour. Turns out he's pretty decent at Overwatch and League of Legends. He even did a freestyle about being on Twitch.
- He's also very fond of cartoons, if his guest appearances (Squidbillies, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Cleveland Show, and We Bare Bears), personal projects (Freaknik: The Musical), and comments regarding Steven Universe (specifically Amethyst) are anything to go by.
- He even cosplayed Leroy Smith from Tekken 7 while his daughter was Dutch from Red Dead Redemption.
- He randomly decided to start a Twitch streaming channel one day while he was on tour. Turns out he's pretty decent at Overwatch and League of Legends. He even did a freestyle about being on Twitch.
- Break-Up Song: "Therapy" is told from the POV of someone instigating a breakup because they just can't stand being with each other anymore.
- Circus Synths: Thr33 Ringz uses the theme of a three-ring circus, portraying the rapper as a confident ringmaster.
- Cock Fight: "Best Love Song" has T-Pain and Chris Brown competing in a music contest to win the affections of a woman in the crowd. At the end, she rejects them both for someone else.
- Department of Redundancy Department: In the song "All The Above", he calls himself "a soldier, a rider, a ghetto survivor, and all the above".
- Iconic Item: T-Pain is always seen with sunglasses, usually huge white-rimmed ones, though he will have different ones sometimes. This led to jokes that he was secretly crosseyed or something like that.
- His famous hats, to a lesser extent.
- Also his big ass chain. The one that says "BIG ASS CHAIN" in diamonds.
- In Da Club: Many of his more iconic songs such as "I'm n Luv with a Stripper," "Buy U a Drank," "Bartender," and "Freeze" take place in clubs.
- Intercourse with You: He's made his fair share of sex songs; "Reverse Cowgirl" is perhaps the most explicit, being named after a sex position and all, while "Can't Believe It" is a more romantic song that combines the sexuality with a surprising level of emotional intimacy (being a Surprisingly Gentle Song for both himself and guest rapper Lil Wayne.) One of his earlier songs, "Backseat Action", is about his overwhelming desire to have sex with his girl in their car. "Rap Song" is a song about having sex to... well... rap songs.
- Melodic Rap: He, along with Kanye West circa 2008, is the chief reason why nearly every modern rapper (and some singers) uses Auto-Tuned drenched, sing-song flows in their songs, with varying degrees of quality. Unfortunately, despite being a legitimately good singer without the Auto-Tune, T-Pain became the scapegoat for the trend, which eventually caused him to take a four-year hiatus from the music industry.
- Signature Headgear: From about 2008-2010, T-Pain wore a variety of colorful top-hats for his music videos and live appearances. After 2010, he autographed all the hats, sold them all on Ebay, and donated the proceeds to charity.
- Signature Style: Melodic club anthems and sex jams with the Auto-Tune cranked up to eleven seem to be his bread-and-butter, and you can often expect a guest rapper to show up.
- The Tease: "Chopped n Skrewed" has T-Pain and Ludacris talking about women who just flirted and teased them without intending to return their feelings.
- Technician vs. Performer: "Best Love Song" alludes to this, with T-Pain as the more technical-minded producer, and Chris Brown as the bombastic, emotional showman. The way they start they each start their verses highlights the contrast:T-Pain: Turn up the bass; turn up the treble
Chris Brown: Turn on the lights; give me a mic - Waxing Lyrical: "Rap Song" has T-Pain name-dropping and quoting from various rap songs.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?/Punny Name: His first two children are named Muziq and Lyriq.
- Wolverine Publicity: The artists he has worked with include R. Kelly, Kanye West, T.I., Bow Wow, Fabolous, Chris Brown, Pitbull, Wiz Khalifa, Lil Wayne, TechN9ne, Ludacris, Ne-Yo, Jesse Mc Cartney, Ciara, Rick Ross, DJ Khaled, Taylor Swift (in a parody song, "Thug Story"), Lily Allen, The Lonely Island, Juicy J, Post Malone, Ty Dolla $ign, and was even in "We Are the World 25 for Haiti".
