T-Pain Says He Fell Into A Four-Year Depression After Usher Heavily Criticized His Music

June 22, 2021 / Posted by:

Netflix just dropped an 8-episode docuseries called This Is Pop, which breaks down eight different aspects of popular music, like the rise of music festivals, country-pop cross-over artists, Britpop, and iconic NYC music production headquarters the Brill Building. There’s also a whole episode on the effects and popularity of Auto-Tune, the pitch-altering music recording program that created the kind of aggressive robo-vocals that lived completely rent-free in our ears during the very late 90s and all throughout the 2000s. T-Pain makes an appearance in the Auto-Tune episode because you can’t talk about Auto-Tune without speaking to the unofficial godfather of it. Cashing huge checks for singing like a robot should have been a great time for T-Pain, but according to him, it was anything but, because of Usher.

In the event you’re not totally familiar with T-Pain’s discography, his voice might be familiar from featuring on the Flo Rida song “Low,” Jamie Foxx’sBlame It,” or Kanye West’sGood Life.” On his own, T-Pain is probably best known for “I’m Sprung” or “Buy You a Drank.” All huge bangers that are extremely fun to dance to, but also examples of the ever-present Auto-Tune sound of the 2000s and 2010s. T-Pain even showed up as himself in a Saturday Night Live digital short, where his Auto-Tuned voice was dialed up as high as digitally possible.

T-Pain shared the t-painful memory of Usher hating on Auto-Tune in a clip from the show, that was recently shared by Entertainment Weekly. In it, he describes how he was once on a plane with Usher that was bound for the 2013 BET Awards, and a flight attendant woke T-Pain up and informed him that Usher would like a word. So T-Pain, who says he was friends with Usher, went back to talk. When he sat down, Usher allegedly laid into him for “fucking up” the music industry. via EW:

“Usher was my friend. I really respect Usher. And he said, ‘I’m gonna tell you something, man. You kinda fucked up music.'”

[T-Pain] says he thought Usher was joking at first, so he laughed. “And then he was like, ‘Yeah man you really fucked up music for real singers,'” he recalls. “I was like, ‘What did I do? I came out and I used Auto-Tune.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, you fucked it up.’ I’m like, ‘But I used it, I didn’t tell everybody else to start using it.'”

Usher refused to back down on his belief that T-Pain absolutely destroyed every last ounce of good taste the music industry had before Auto-Tune’s invention, and that caused T-Pain to enter a dark place for four years.

“That is the very moment, and I don’t even think I realized this for a long time, but that’s the very moment that started a four-year depression for me.”

T-Pain released the album Revolver in 2011 and then didn’t release another album until six years later, in 2017 (his most recent studio album was released two years ago). He featured on 62 tracks between the years of 2006 and 2013, and then just 10 tracks between 2014 and 2020. I don’t know if that’s because of Usher’s negative-ass influence or what. But people on the internet were quick to call Usher on his BS opinions, like that T-Pain fucked up music for real singers. For example, here’s T-Pain singing a slowed-down remix of “I’m N Luv (wit a Stripper)” without any Auto-Tune, and he’s clearly one of those “real singers” Usher was talking about.

Usher hasn’t yet responded to T-Pain. But I hope that if he does, he acknowledges that T-Pain didn’t “fuck up” the music industry. It’s probably too much to hope that Usher might acknowledge his hating on T-Pain was entirely too bold, considering his own contributions to the downfall of music. For example, I can’t personally hear the word, “Yeah,” without immediately going into survival mode to prevent from singing, “Shorty got down low said come and get me.“.

Pics: Wenn.com

SHARE
Our commenting rules: Don't be racist or bigoted, or post comments like "Who cares?", or have multiple accounts, or repost a comment that was deleted by a mod, or post NSFW pics/videos/GIFs, or go off topic when not in an Open Post, or post paparazzi/event/red carpet pics from photo agencies due to copyright infringement issues. Also, promoting adblockers, your website, or your forum is not allowed. Breaking a rule may result in your Disqus account getting permanently or temporarily banned. New commenters must go through a period of pre-moderation. And some posts may be pre-moderated so it could take a minute for your comment to appear if it's approved. If you have a question or an issue with comments, email: michaelk@dlisted.com

src="https://c.statcounter.com/922697/0/f674ac4a/1/"
alt="drupal analytics" >