American rapper T.I. was born Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. in St. Georgia, Atlanta. Back in his childhood, he was known as Tip, and he came to be known as T.I.P. This was an acronym for the “Ten Inch Playa”. However, on signing with LaFace records, he shorted it to T.I. out of respect for his contemporary Q-Tip. T.I. is also famously known as the “Rubberband Man”, and though he proclaims himself as the “King of the South”, it has caused a lot of controversy with other southern rappers such Ludacris and Lil’ Flip.

T.I. released his debut album, ‘Im Serious’, in 2001. This had a single also titled “Im Serious” and featured reggae singer Beenie Man. In spite of ‘Im Serious’ boasting of names like Pharrell Williams of The Neptunes, Jazze Pha and ((YoungBloodz)), the album didn’t do very well and this resulted in his label dropping him from their camp.

He then signed up with Grand Hustle Records and with the help of DJ Drama created a name for himself in the underground with several mixtapes. Following this, he next appeared in 2003 on Bonecrusher’s song “Neva Scared”. After this he released his second album, ‘Trap Muzik’. This album did much better than ‘Im Serious’.

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