T-Pain achieved his first No. 1 song with 2007’s “Buy U A Drank,” but the song almost didn’t happen because of his disdain for snap music at the time.
Going through his many hits for an episode of Billboard‘s Chart History series published on Thursday (May 2), Teddy Pain revealed that his album Epiphany, which housed the smash single, was seemingly finished when his A&R MempHitz suggested the addition of one last song.
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“That song almost didn’t happen,” Pain explained. “You know I had my album coming and the snap craze was crazy at that point – Dem Franchise Boyz, Jermaine Dupri was killing it. Atlanta was really, really taking over the airwaves at the time. The whole Epiphany album was already done. Well, I thought so anyway. And then my A&R MempHitz was like, ‘Yo I know you don’t like this kind of music but we need one snap song. We need one snap music song and then I think your album is complete.’
“And I was like, ‘Dude I do not wanna do a snap song because honestly I’m an artist and snap music is below me!’ That’s what I’m thinking at the time, not knowing I’m making the stupidest music, just as simple. And I was like, ‘I’ll do my version of a snap song.'”
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He concluded: “So yeah, I’m glad he made that decision, I’m glad he kind of pushed that one me and pushed me past my limit and came out with a banger. First T-Pain No. 1.”
Watch the full episode below. The “Buy You A Drank” convo happens around the 17:28 mark.
Elsewhere in the conversation, T-Pain revealed that there are various other unreleased versions of his classic Kanye West collaboration “Good Life” featuring other artists.
“That song took two months to record. There’s five different versions of the hook and he didn’t use any of them,” T-Pain said. “The version that we know now, I didn’t hear that version of the song until I got to the video shoot.
“It sounded nothing like that in the studio. The sample wasn’t there. John Legend was on it, I think Marsha Ambrosius. So many different versions, so many different artists.
“Every time he had an idea, I had to go back to work on the song. A very stressful song to make but it turned out great. Once the song got released, I don’t think I was happy because he didn’t use the stuff that was supposed to be hooks.
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He concluded: “He just kinda pieced together a lot of other stuff I did but it worked.”
