The Atlanta rap titan on his new albumThe L.I.B.R.A.and why hell never quit being divisive.
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T.I.is a jack of all trades and he wants you to know it.
When he got out, T.I.
committed himself to turning his life around, following earlier roles in films likeATLandAmerican GangsterwithT.I.
Hes also a podcast host;ExpediTIously With Tip T.I.
Harrisfeatures probing interviews with musicians, activists, and comics.
I feel like youre only as good as your last display.
Im so fortunate and blessed and happy as hell that I dont have to worry about that.
My income or should I say, my lifestyle is not based on the residuals from record sales.
So Im doing this shit really for love.
Im like, I dont know.
For instance Ring, the record with [Young] Thug.
I had that record for a year and a half
What!
?Maybe two years.
Really, I make music for me and my homeboys and my people that listen.
And people stop me, like, Hey, man, you gotta put that out.
And Im like, Ill get around to it.
Its usually about the time I have to dedicate to [promotion], this part of it.
On the new song Pardon you say you have four or five classics.
I got four or five of those.
If you from New York, then you may disagree.
Anybody from below the Mason-Dixon Line
We got you on, like, two or three.
Theyre gonna say Tip.
Theyre gonna say Jeezy and Ludacris.
I thinkTrap Muzik,Urban Legend, andKingare undeniable.
And if you from New York, it probably didnt.
Ill check him out.
New Yorkers got to understand, we dont need you all to justify our classics for us.
We had to learn that over time.We aint looking for validation.
We know what means something to us.
In New York, a lot of motherfuckers say Mobb Deeps [The Infamous] is a classic.
I tend to agree.
For us, undeniably UGK,Ridin Dirty, classic.
Honestly, I didnt hear that till my 20s or 30s.You see what Im saying?
I dont give a damn.
Your ass could have been on the moon.
Paper Trailwas jumping in New York City at the time.
Well, the singles were.Undeniable classic, you dig what Im saying?
No Mercy,though …?I gave you my five.
Are there albums that make you look back and question whether you gave 100 percent?No MercyandT.I.
I was incredibly distracted and just kind of all over the place.
My head wasnt on straight at all.
Let me see what else …Trouble Man…
I likeTrouble Man!I think that was my last record as an Atlantic Records artist.
They wanted me to extend, and I didnt really want to extend.
That could have gone better.
I think we could have went harder.
For me too, though.
I think I would have went harder.
On both sides, it could have been executed better.
OnThe L.I.B.R.A., you have a song called Family Connect with your son, Domani.
Your daughter, Deyjah, does a feature at the end of the album.
How is it watching your next generation coming into their own creatively?Im impressed.
I value that more than I do my career.
My career, its good.
That is an anomaly within itself.
And theyre all different personality types.
Some are more introverted, some are more extroverted.
Some are quiet and some are outspoken, but theyre all just incredible kids.
Thats the shit that Im most proud of.
Ive always wondered ifT.I.
and Tiny: The Family Hustlewas an attempt to reform your image a little bit after prison.Yes.
Talked about it in the visiting room at Forrest City Prison.
I had to work through that, and it took time.
In that time, I was working through it, I goddamn … fucked up my freedom.
However, that is a blip on the radar in comparison to how far we have left to go.
Same thing withthe situation that I had with Deyjah.
If a motherfucker come up to my face talking about my daughter, Im gonna beat your ass.
Thats straight up, period.
Dont play with me.
Either you kicking some ass or Im kicking some ass.
One of us is walking away with a ass whooping if you pull up on me.
If you within arms reach, man, we will be reaching.
Im not telling anybody what to do.
Im just offering perspective.
I said not fighting back.
I didnt say nonviolence.
you could be nonviolent, but if you hit me, Im gonna fight back.
Nonviolence is different from not fighting back.
I approach the situation, and I come in peace, and Im nonviolent.
If somebody hit me in my mouth, Im fighting back.
You slap my momma, I wont be nonviolent.
That nonviolence shit is out the window.
Anybody come and grab my lady by the ass, the nonviolence shit is out the window.
Im as nonviolent as my environment will allow me to be.
People really latched onto it when youcalledthe city Wakanda.
Do you wish you worded that differently?No.
I said what the fuck I said.
Renaissance-era Harlem.All right, well you get your time machine, you go on and enjoy it.
Twenty minutes north we have Marietta Square where Black people were hanged.
Its still functioning to this day.
Go on back to the places where the action happened.
Life is about change.
Life is a series of adjustments.
No one stays the same.
I am a diverse individual in all facets.
Talk about embracing that variety into your music.
You started off making a lot of street stuff and later you pivoted and incorporated politicsThats not true.
Thats how I know you from New York.
You didnt even take the time to listen.
Ive heard every album you ever put out.Every album?
You said I started out making street stuff
You did!
I dont have to fit into the box of being the token street nigga from Atlanta.
I can be way more than that.
I dont got to be the super-woke nigga of the generation.
I can be everything.
I could be all this shit at one time.
Do you feel like withUs or Themthat you maybe turned theUs or Else.
See what Im saying?
Typical New York shit.Us or Else.
Hold on, because technically Im from the South.
My family is from the South.Well, you got New York habits.
I cant help what radio didnt play where I grew up.You shouldnt even mention Texas.
Man, have you even heardToo Hard to Swallow?
Ive heard every UGK album.You heardSuper Tight?
Yes.How far, Z-Ro?
Ive listened to plenty of Screw tapes.What about Pat?
Project Pat?He from Memphis.
Man, never mind, man.
Lets just talk about something else.
How is quarantine?Great.
I actually enjoy the quarantine shelter and places, period.
I love that shit.
Got a chance to spend time with my family, with my children.
I wasnt rushing off to this plane and that plane, going this place and that place.
Got to read my daughter bedtime stories, tuck her in, make breakfast when she wake up.
That shit to me was phenomenal.
Ive been to prison so I wasnt tripping.
Now … how can I say this?
I never thought of it that way.Oh absolutely.
And there was no traffic.
I could goddamn get up and down and back and forth.
Thats what the quarantine showed me.
Its a bunch of motherfuckers just out here in the way.
Theyre clogging up the pipeline of coming and going.
I had the whole fuckin city to myself it felt like, and I loved it.
I feel like it was just a perfect record, that only he and I could have done.
Youre speaking to the motherfuckers watching.
Somebody has to offer the alternative to that discussion.
Hey man, thats some bullshit.
Thats not whats happening.
This is what the real deal is.
Ill show you why.
So the person who was on the fence is like, Okay, this makes more sense to me.
Its a bunch of motherfuckers watching them who havent made up their minds.
Theyre trying to figure out who theyre supposed to be following.
So Im just trying to scrub the air and let them know.
It was hypothetical, you dig?
I aint got no crystal ball.
If our paths ever intersect, Ill be keeping the Champagne cold.
Is it a trip doing all the interviewing instead of being interviewed?It was at first.
A lot of motherfuckers told me I wont let people talk.
Man you keep cutting people off.
You gotta let people talk.
I may have a bad habit of doing that, but Ive been getting better as the time goes.
Family Connect and Deyjahs Conclusion.
Its an exceptional moment.
So to do this is a special occasion.
One day I said, Hey Deyjah, write me a poem.
She said, I dont really have nothing but I could.
[She wrote it in] half a day, probably.
We have to wait till she reaches a moment of clarity again and cares to share.
A lot of successful artists are like that.
Pusha-T says he only writes when he feels like it.He dope as a motherfucker.
I do this shit every day.
I get up, come to the studio, and go in.
Its in me, not on me.
Do you just have millions of songs we never heard?
You only drop an album once every two years or so.Thousands.
Thats the best inheritance I can give a motherfucker.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
