It looks like someone needs to buy T-Pain a drank after he shared a disheartening revelation on social media. The infinitely talented singer/songwriter has dominated various genres of music from rap to pop to country for years, but most people probably don’t know it.
According to T-Pain, he has experienced the most racism when trying to release country music songs. In an Instagram video, T-Pain called out discrimination in the country music industry—something that Black artists like K-Michelle know all too well.
From Mickey Guyton to Lil Nas X, we’ve seen how Black artists are treated by country music executives and fans. T-Pain understands this reality firsthand and decided to finally speak his truth about his own experiences with racism.
“Good music is good music,” T-Pain said in the video. “I don’t give a f**k where it come from or what style it come in. All the people I know feel like it’s not cool to listen to other genres of music. Country music is where I get all my harmonies. Country and gospel music — that’s where all my harmonies come from.”
T-Pain’s creative process is a prolific one, yet the racist nature of country music industry has prevented him from getting his just due. “I done wrote a lot of country songs,” he stated. “Stopped taking credit for it because as cool as it is to see your name in those credits and s**t like that, the racism that comes after it is just like — I’ll just take the check.”
He explained about his writing credits, “Don’t put me on that s**t; I’ll just take the check, bro.”
T-Pain’s latest release, “On Top Of The Covers (Live From The Sun Rose),” features renditions of popular songs by Luther Vandross, Sam Cooke and Montell Jordan.