Among the plethora of artists Chicago rapper Kanye West recruited while working on his 808s & Heartbreak album years ago was Tallahassee, Florida singer/rapper T-Pain. And during a recent interview with Vlad TV, T-Pain recalled working with Kanye on his fourth studio album while in Hawaii.
According to T-Pain, Kanye expressed his appreciation for his debut album, Rappa Ternt Sanga and even referred to the Floridian musician as a “genius” for his work on the LP.
“The crazy thing was I worked on 808s & Heartbreak with Kanye,” T-Pain said. “I went down to Hawaii for like 10 days with that *****. You know what I’m saying? And Kanye actually told me himself. My album, Rappa Ternt Sanga, he said ‘I listened to your album Rappa Ternt Sanga. I heard all the songs. I ****in love your album Rappa Ternt Sanga. I think you a genius. Blah blah blah.’ He went through this whole spiel. He said, ‘But what I figured out that Rappa Ternt Sanga is just a bunch of love songs with a **** load of base in em.’ And I’m like ‘Well, love songs is like heartbreaks and the **** load of bass is the 808s. So, you calling your album 808s & Heartbreak because you making a bunch of love songs with a **** load of bass in ‘em?’ And he basically was like ‘Yeah, pretty much.’”
T-Pain says the similarities between Rappa Ternt Sanga and 808s & Heartbreak and the lack of credit he received as the originator of the Auto-Tune technique once Ye’s album was released left him feeling unappreciated.
“I respect that ****, but it’s like the praise that he got from it was like ‘Oh my God, this is so creative. This is the new ****. This is the ****,’” he said. “And I’m like ‘Well, what happened in 2005 when I dropped Rappa Ternt Sanga and it was the same album. That’s kind of weird.’ You know what I’m saying. It just felt like I was unappreciated and anything like that. Any originator of anything is gonna be the lesser known because it’s the newest thing and that’s just not—it’s not right, but that’s just how **** goes.”
With the release of his debut album and singles including “I’m Spring” and "I'm 'n Luv (Wit a Stripper),” T-Pain became one of the first mainstream acts to rely heavily on the use Auto-Tune in his music. T-Pain’s work with Auto-Tune ultimately resulted in the singer/rapper being recruited for 808s & Heartbreak towards the end of the project.
But 808s & Heartbreak was 50x better than T-Pain's album, musically and from a songwriting standpoint though. And this is coming from someone who really dislikes Kanye. His album was just all around better. And people complained about the auto tune when Kanye used it just as much as when T-Pain used it, so..
And people complained about the auto tune when Kanye used it just as much as when T-Pain used it, so.. 