T-Pain

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• Genre: Contemporary R&B
• Hometown: Tallahassee
• T-Pain Website

About

Coming out of Tallahassee, Florida, T-Pain started making music as a youngster, recording four-track keyboard beats and rhyming over them beginning at the age of 10. As a teenager, he rolled with a crew called Nappy Headz, finding local success with rowdy street records like "Robbery" and "F.L.A." After the group's shine began to dim, T-Pain switched his focus to singing, calling his own unique style "Hard & B." As a solo artist, his demo track "Time to Make Love" was added to the rotation at local radio station the Beat 100.4 and started making waves. In 2004, he reworked Akon's hit single "Locked Up" into his own tune entitled "F*ck*d Up" and the song took off regionally. Akon himself was so impressed by the cut that he signed the young singer to his Konvict Records imprint. In the fall of 2005, T-Pain dropped his first major label single, the Zapp-flavored "I'm Sprung," in anticipation of his debut album Rappa Ternt Sanger. In 2007, T-Pain officially staked his claim on the hip-hop and RnB landscape with Epiphany, spawning the ubiquitous club joints "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" and "Bartender." With vocoder in tow, T-Pain himself became ubiquitous, collaborating with Chris Brown, R. Kelly, Huey, DJ Khaled and every Florida rapper in existence.

- Brolin Winning