T.I. recently spoke about his interactions with 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne on the “America’s Most Wanted Festival.” The Georgia rapper also talked about succeeding despite adversities and why he feels he is a “multi-media company” in an interview with.
“We speak at least once or twice a day,” T.I. said of 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne in an interview with Life+Times. “It’s very rare when you’re around people who have as much as you. They don’t need you for nothing. When people have as much as you, it’s like we’re only around one another because we enjoy one another’s company. When we cease to enjoy one another’s company, there’s nothing keeping me around you. I can leave over here and have just as much fun by myself. So could you. You’ve got your own money. You’ve got your own girls. Now if somebody’s around you because when they’re around you, they can be introduced to more than they can be by themselves, then it’s not just about the company at that point. So that’s the organic nature of how we communicate with one another.”
T.I. also talked about what it’s like to be an independent artist after being signed to Atlantic and Arista.
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“I own all my music, my publishing, my [merchandise], my touring rights, my everything,” he said. “I don’t even know if there will be a next deal because for an artist of my caliber in order to go out there and do a deal and pretty much lock yourself down with a distributor, it has to be a considerable investment. You can’t just go sign superstars for hundreds of thousands of dollars nowadays.
“If you’re looking at it like you’re signing an artist, you’re already looking at it backwards,” he continued. “You’ve gotta look at it like you’re acquiring a multi-media company because I’ve operated in so many different facets. So, maybe it’s a little too healthy for the traditional sense of what record companies are able to do right now, so maybe it has to be something unconventional.”
T.I. also spoke about how he feels when analyzing his career and the adversities he has come across along the way.
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“When you have other things going in your life other than your business and you are available to maintain a significant level of success and notoriety outside of those plights and [adverse] circumstances, then I rate myself on a different scale now,” he said. “I know what I could have done had I not had those adversities in my way. Considering that I have, I have to put myself on a different scale, a different timeline. I could have done so much more outside of those things, if those things had not taken place. Since they have, to even still be here is worth healthy, healthy admiration of myself. You ain’t got to admire me for it but I can because I know what it took to get here.”
T.I.’s reference to adversities is likely in relation to his several arrests, including one in 2007 before the BET Awards and one in 2010 for drug possession.
The full Life+Times interview can be seen below.
