Man Can Sing

Auto-tune poster child T-Pain just blew everyone’s minds yesterday with his performance at NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert, where he taught us all that he can saaaaang.

The New Yorker’s Culture Desk had an interview with him earlier this year: his association with the pitch-correcting device marred his attempt to be a considered a “real artist” and to be taken seriously, both by consumers and his peers, sending him into a depression. An anecdote from the article: after inviting T-Pain in to consult on 808 and Heartbreak, “Kanye wrote a song about how dumb all of T-Pain’s ideas were. He then proceeded, T-Pain said, to make “everybody in the studio join in with him to sing, like, “T-Pain’s shit is weak.”’

People always tell him it makes no sense for someone in his position to care so much about idiot teen-agers posting comments on social media. “People are, like, ‘You’re rich!’ What’re you so worried about?’ ” he says. “And I’m, like, money ain’t the issue here. Yeah, I can buy shit. But I want people to like me, too! God damn!”

Hmm, what advice would you give him? How about his own!!

You already have all you need. Nothing in life worth having comes without sacrifice and/or struggle. Do not alienate the people around you. Use the negative things that happen to you as motivation to push forward. As long as you continue to believe in yourself nothing can stand in your way. Times often get rough, which is the nature of life, but your self-belief and how you view yourself will guide you through any problem.

Singer T-Pain, please listen to Advice Columnist T-Pain, and know that everything is going to be fine (as long as you drop that acoustic album real soon).