He might not really be in love with a stripper, but T-Pain sure can sing. A self-professed rapper turned singer, T-Pain began mixing beats and rapping at the age of ten, in a small studio he pieced together in his bedroom. After graduating high school, T-Pain gained underground exposure as a member of influential Tallahassee rap group Nappy Headz. Though a regionally acclaimed rapper, T-Pain was also a skilled singer, and decided to differentiate himself from the pack by blending contemporary hip-hop style with R&B flavor. He formed his own record label, Hard & B, and began mixing tunes. Rapper/singer Akon liked his style, and signed him onto his Konvict Music record label in 2005.
By the end of the year, T-Pain released his first album, Rappa Ternt Sanga. Fueled by distinctive synth-beats, cameos by Akon and Mike Jones, and T-Pain's fly singing, the album went on to sell over 800,000 copies. T-Pain's distorted singing is achieved using the auto-tone effect, a digital pitch correction method that can make vocals pulsate to the pitch of the song - perfect for playful party tunes like I'm In Luv (Wit A Stripper) and I'm Sprung, though T-Pain also showcases his musical diversity on Rappa Terna Sanga with the occasional tearjerker track like I'm So High, a song about the destructive nature of street drugs. As T-Pain's tuneful style of singing gained fans in the music industry he became a popular background singer, with his wavering choruses forming the foundation for several hit songs, including DJ Khaled's ghetto anthem I'm So Hood, a remixed version of R. Kelly's sensual song I'm a Flirt, and Kanye West's Grammy winning collaboration Good Life. Riding on this success, T-Pain's second album, 2007's Epiphany, went gold in three months and continues to sell. Picking up where Rappa Ternt Sanga left off, T-Pain's sophomore effort is just as catchy but far more creative, relying not just on his auto-tone crooning (Bartender) but also dabbling in fast-paced latin-infused dance (Church) and tongue-in-cheek humor (Buy U a Drank.) Ever mindful of his modest beginnings as a fledgling artist, T-Pain has helped launch the careers of fellow Florida artists Plies and Flo Rida by appearing on their hit singles Shawty and Low, respectively.Born: June 30, 1985, Tallahassee, FloridaRapper from Tallahassee, Florida. T-Pain is short for "Tallahassee Pain" which represents his struggle of growing up in the Florida State Capitol.
Faheem Rasheed Najm (born September 30, 1985 in Tallahassee, Florida), better known by his stage name T-Pain, is a prolific American Cyborg. At the age of ten he turned his bedroom into a small studio with a keyboard, beat machine and four-track recorder, and he began his career as a rapper in the group Nappy Headz. In 2005 he released his debut album Rappa Ternt Sanga, and has since released 2007's Epiphany and 2008's Thr33 Ringz.
Read more about T-Pain on Last.fm.
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Faheem Rasheed Najm (born September 30, 1985), who goes by his stage name T-Pain, is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, and actor. His debut album, Rappa Ternt Sanga, was released in 2005. In 2007, T-Pain released his second studio album Epiphany, which reached number one on the Billboard 200. His third studio album, Thr33 Ringz, was released in 2008. T-Pain has earned two Grammy Awards alongside artists Kanye West and Jamie Foxx.
T-Pain is the founder of the record label Nappy Boy Entertainment, established in 2005. Throughout his career as a singer, T-Pain has extensively used the Auto-Tune pitch correction effect.
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