T-Pain changed the music landscape forever when he made his debut in 2004 with an Auto-Tune heavy sound. Artists who didn’t have the best singing voices received a major push with how Auto-Tune altered their voices. However, not everyone loved it.
In an exclusive clip from the upcoming Netflix series This Is Pop, T-Pain spoke of the time he fell into deep depression after Usher told him his debut messed up music forever.
“Usher was my friend,” T-Pain said in the clip. “I really respect Usher. And he said, ‘I’m gonna tell you something, man. You kinda fucked up music.'”
T-Pain thought Usher’s comment was a joke initially and laughed it up until the Confessions singer reiterated his statement.
“And then he was like, ‘Yeah man you really fucked up music for real singers,'” T-Pain continued to say. “I was like, ‘What did I do? I came out and I used Auto-Tune.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, you fucked it up.’ I’m like, ‘But I used it, I didn’t tell everybody else to start using it.'”
T-Pain added, “That is the very moment, and I don’t even think I realized this for a long time, but that’s the very moment that started a four-year depression for me.”
Usher wasn’t the only one who felt T-Pain ruined the music industry with his heavy use of Auto-Tune. JAY-Z’s first single off The Blueprint 3 titled “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)” took aim at the overuse of Auto-Tune in Hip Hop, and had a lot of supporters label T-Pain as the culprit behind the excessive use of the voice enhancer.
One of T-Pain’s Auto-Tune heavy tracks, “Buy You A Drank (Shawty Snappin),” is getting some love in the book department. The Miami crooner is teaming up with beverage professional Maxwell Britten to revisit his love for liquor with an upcoming cocktail recipe book titled Can I Mix You a Drink: 50 Cocktails From My Life & Career.
T-Pain Is The ‘Bartender’ With Upcoming Cocktail Recipe Book
“Years back, I got up with my friend, [author] Kathy Iandoli, and told her I wanted to do some innovative shit, so this was a concept we had in mind for a while, where I could combine my music with my love of drinking,” T-Pain told Billboard. “She and I worked on this for a while, and then we both were busy with other stuff, then we came back together and finished this up.”
he emotional
T Lame only exists because of Autotune. Now every song on the radio has it. I miss when singing actually meant singing.
T-Pain has a perfect pitch and can write songs. Autotune just made him stand out.
And Usher fuk’d up his penis. #Herpes
Some exercise and healthier eating will cure that depression nonsense up…and quit trikin’ as well
Well his auto tunes made hits for him!! And for the record!! Usher messed up with me, spreading that herpes!! And some of these R&B singers can’t sing at all!! Regardless of auto tunes or not!! They go by looks instead of talent!!
I agree with usher. But what really fucks me up more is how singers are being called rappers. At least back in the day, everyone referred to t-pain as a singer
nah i bet his depression started when other artists noticed they could easily hire an engineer to copy his style
The industry is such trash putting this all on T-Pain.T-Pain was fair from the first to do it. Roger Trautmann and ZAPP had it poppin in the 70s and 8-s, Punk dabbled with it. A few Black 80s funk acts used vocoders and auto-tune. But Black music was more creztive so eventho a few artists were doing it, there was no mass mob following because everybody had their own lane. Everybody wasn’t tryting to be Rpince or MJ or Whitney or Luther… you did you and enjoyed what other folks do.
T-Pain made really fun music with but it was just a tool for getting a vibe off and fitting the music he was making. That everybody copied it isn’t on him. Sad part is T-Pain can actually sing really well without auto-tune but nobody cares. We’re also in an era where kids intentionally dont know how to sing with tech. So much trash music these days.
You’re right. Let’s not give him too much credit. He didn’t invent auto tune. So called artists rode the trend till the wheels fell off.
Nah, Tpain was first autotune, zapp was voicebox
people loved it though not everyone but people loved it.
T- Pain is a legend and actually enhanced music…he didn’t harm it. Give T-Pain his flowers for creating majors hits using auto-tune.
Usher is a clown, but autotune was the secornd worst thing happened to hiphop. The 1st was when Teddy Riley, Dr. Dre and them made rnb singers dressed like rappers and mixed bitching with hiphop.
As mentioned below, T-Pain wasn’t the pioneer of this auto-tune shit that’s overused in every damn track these days, but he damn sure popularised it the most, brought it to a worldwide audiences and was the biggest part of the problem with all this shit. I don’t care how many “hits” this dude had. Just look at the “legacy” of this today? Everybody not only singing in autotune but using wack elementary rhymes sounding like some type of robot all the time. When did this bs become the standard? Smfh. Usher may be a diseased dick mf, but he’s right about this shit right here
The statement kinda isn’t wrong though. Although I wouldn’t blame T-Pain, someone else woulda done eventually either way.
Just because R&b fell off the map does not mean it was Tpains fault your ass can’t sell records… putting blame on someone who’s supposed to be your homie, nah we ain’t friends bro with that salty shit ass ego.
These millennial bandwagon jackers fucked it.
wasnt t-pain fault BUT after 04′ bruh, autotune crossed over into everything and it was a new genre basically. It was no longer hot to just rap even. word
Autotune and Drake are the worst thing that happened to the music industry…
In hindsight, it’s messed up that he got sole blame for the copycat industry taking up auto tune. Especially considering that it had been around for awhile.
Rappers took it and ran with it though. Definitely a black mark on current “pop rap”.
Roger Troutman and Teddy Riley used it as a tool. That was a signature for both of them, but they also had great writing and production behind it so it was not annoying. T-Pains music is really terrible and unfortunately for him everybody wants to sound the same and not be different so it killed the music and got played out really early.
This tells me how much you really know about music. Roger Troutman and Teddy Riley NEVER used autotune. It`wasn`t even invented at that time. They used talkbox. And T-Pain made great music. Just because you don`t like autotune doesn`t make his songs bad. I`m sorry. Anybody with knowledge of making music would know that.
And it was Teddy Pendergrass, not Teddy Riley..
Yup and Usher ruined herpes
T-Pain is a talented dude….but he’s very incoherent with his music. He makes good stuff though, so i guess he’s trying to get some attention because he’s been in the media a lot lately. Just bring a solid album, shit!
T Pain don’t trip off of usher because u started it and everybody follow so you’re an innovator Usher was done when he discovered Justin Bieber so don’t let somebody with herpes stop u because you actually can sing and rap too he just mad