On a Friday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, Hip Hop icon T.I. - inarguably one of the south’s greatest rappers of all-time - commanded center stage at the New Era NASCAR All-Star weekend kickoff party held at the esteemed 5Church restaurant. T.I. changed the rap game forever with the release of his now enshrined Trap Muzik. That was in 2003, before the word ‘Trap’ was a household name; back when it was still a dope spot, and right around the same time he essentially made the drum drowned, street themed, ghetto anthemic sound it’s own emblematic genre. The artist’s style is equal parts hustler, gangsta, playa, pimp and poet, and as such, T.I.’s famed fast lane eludes the trap music traffic jam largely because his music just so happens to include stellar lyricism and more game-turned-guidance gems dropped than your grandaddy raised your uncles with. That’s game. He’s good. With a grand total of nine albums under his belt and a highly anticipated tenth - “The Dime Trap” - in the works, T.I. is a grand hustler who transformed the music in his native Atlanta, making himself an entreprenuerial multimillionaire in the process.
Pure DOPE Magazine
Young, Fly & Affluent