Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr. is a complicated man, and that comes through in the number of different, sometimes contradictory, roles he's played in pop culture since he first broke out with a scene-stealing verse on Atlanta rapper Bone Crusher's 2003 single "Never Scared." The man better known as T.I. is a street-rap hero, a pop star, an entrepreneur, an ex-convict, a reality-show personality, and a comedic actor. The conflicted relationship between the guy who got caught with machine guns in his car and the guy who helped turn Iggy Azalea into a global megastar has been one of his most compelling qualities, especially as it's played out in his music. Just after the surprise release of a new return-to-form EP Da' Nic—not to mention some more scene-stealing work flexing his funny side in Get Hard and Ant-Man—Esquire sat down with Tip to talk about his upcoming album The Dime Trap, the state of hip-hop, and how he balances the different sides of his personality.
I saw that you said Da' Nic is a Tip record and not a T.I. one, and on the cover it's actually credited to Tip. What exactly does that signify?
Tip is me, personally, outside of the celebrity. That's what my mother calls me. That's what people who know me personally call me. In the process of making my very first album, I got signed as Tip, but my name then had to change when Arista acquired LaFace because that then put me on the same label as Q-Tip. They strongly suggested that I change my name, but I had nothing to change my name to. I'd never been called anything else. I felt like, since it's just a suggestion, maybe if I come up with nothing then, you know, things'll stay as they are. Much to my dismay, I found out that that suggestion was more... ultimatum-ish. So I was like Okay, just come up with something. I think KP [LaFace exec Kawan Prather] was like, "What about T.I.?" And I was like, "What the fuck is 'T.I.'? What does that mean?" And he was like, "You got something better?" And I'm like, Man, fuck it.
So I guess, traditionally, I always looked at T.I. as who I became for the industry, and Tip is who I've always been. I always associate certain records, like "Why You Wanna," "Whatever You Like," "Let's Get Away"—certain brighter, more colorful, lighter records—with T.I., and more trouble man-themed records—"U Don't Know Me," "What You Know," "Top Back,"—I associate with Tip. Both of them have contributed enormous amounts of success to my career, and have enabled me to be unapologetically diverse. I think that every artist, once you get a taste of success in the mainstream pop arena, everyone expects—and you expect from yourself—to follow that up with something similar. So sometimes you find guys dedicated a lot of time and attention to the mainstream part of making music, and those of us who do it well, we succeed many times, but in that process you must have some misses. You know, those misses kind of dilute the attention span of the day-one fan. So right here, I felt with Da' Nic and The Dime Trap [out in November], which is my tenth album, I felt like I would dedicate this completely to the day-one fan and make my name what it should have been in the first place.
You've released Da' Nic in a different way, with a new distributor, and you announced its release from Twitter headquarters. Does the way you're working now give you more control than before?
You know, I have a more flexible partner, I'll say. Before, I was in control of everything except how long it took the infrastructure in the building to turn things around. There were certain systematic protocols and procedures that I didn't necessarily... I could say that I didn't want to do it in a certain way, but the consequence of doing it my way was always, "I guess we're going to have to spend an extra XYZ or wait an extra week or two or three," and that usually impacted the weight of my decision. This time, there were not as many of those protocols involved.
These days two or three weeks is like a lifetime, especially in hip-hop.
It is.
https://soundcloud.com/tiofficial/sets/da-nicIt seems like keeping people's attention spans would be a challenge.
The thing is, you have to do what you know you do. I think that right now, when you venture out and do something that is foreign to the people who have been your core demographic, you stand a chance of winning over millions of new fans, or you stand a chance of losing the ones that you had already. You have to decide. Right now, it's more about what you mean to people. What people identify you with and look to you for. Once you have that in mind, you can approach it with more certainty.
As someone who was in first wave of trap rap, what's it like for you to see it take over the pop charts in the way that it has? Fetty Wap's "Trap Queen" is one of the biggest songs of the year.
I don't necessarily see that as trap music. Fetty Wap's a phenomenal artist, and he did use the word "trap," but I think sonically it's a tad more mainstream. I think the Young Jeezys, the Yo Gottis, even the Futures, the Guccis, those are the people who I feel still embody the trap music genre.
It's crazy, though, that's there's such a thing as "trap pop," which I guess is what you could call Fetty Wap.
It's an oxymoron. [Laughs] I mean, I think it's wonderful that he's able to take the lifestyle and merge it sonically with something that works for him.
http://www.vevo.com/watch/USUYG1080475You have Young Thug on Da' Nic, and he's been a really fascinating character in the rap scene recently. What do you think it is that draws people to him?
He's unique and controversial and dangerous and weird and talented. He's an amoeba of things. [Laughs] I think he kinda crossed all the lines, broke all the barriers, and transcended all the stereotypes that go with gangsters, artists, Southerners, you know what I'm saying? He never really conformed to any genre or class or group. I think that's what's so exciting and intriguing about him. If you don't know him and you just see his pictures, you expect a certain type of person, but when you meet him, that's not what you get at all. I think that mystery, that mystique, is what intrigues people the most.
You've had a couple of pretty big comic film roles recently, like in Entourage, and you'll be in Ride Along 2. People always seem surprised when rappers, especially ones with a hard image, turn out to be funny, but humor's always been a really important element of hip-hop.
Yeah. Sometimes we gotta laugh to keep from crying. In the environment that the music derives from, I think it requires the most amount of comedy, man, just to make light of very, very difficult situations.
What can you tell me about The Dime Trap?
The Dime Trap is still in the kitchen. I'm faced with the incredible task of keeping it gutter and making sure it can't be pretty enough to be a T.I. album, but at the same time, with the right amount of substance and the right amount of authenticity, it must have hit records. In a very All Eyez on Me [by 2Pac] kind of way, a very Thug Motivation 101 [by Young Jeezy] kind of way. I have to approach it with those details in mind.
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