While awaiting criminal sentencing for federal weapons charges, TI wrote down lyrics for the first time since his debut album, hence the name of his 2008 smash hit album 'Paper Trail'. The album is profoundly self aware. Even his most popular songs seem to face his personal issues; song topics usually left behind in those fifteen 'other' tracks left over on an album after MTV gets done with it. TI worked with Jay-Z, Rhianna, Swizz Beats, Justin Timberlake, Just Blaze, and Kanye West just to name a few of the hotshots to produce this album. Songs you have more then likely heard on the radio, 'Dead and Gone', 'What up, Whats Happenin?', 'Whatever You Like', 'Live Your Life', 'Slideshow', and 'My Life your Entertainment' all aired nationally, as well as internationally. It has been nominated for a Grammy, but the buzz it has generated has been much farther reaching.
In case you aren't a hip-hop fan, it is difficult to even turn on a television set without running into the new MTV documentary 'TI's Road to Redemption'. He is trying his hardest to walk through his own life with a few kids he feels are at risk of making the same mistakes he made. What is interesting about the show, the album, and the charges is they there is so much reality in it. We see reality shows filled with morons and lunatics, but this is reality. TI made an album about what he has learned in his life, the things that happened to him are real, and the charges are real. The people or the kids rather that he is mentoring are real, and so is their danger. Celebrities do a lot of things for publicity, and I don't doubt that to some degree TI is going to ask the judges to look st his progress during his sentencing but there is a certain reality in his life in the spotlight that most well known faces never show.
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