T-Pain Confirms Three Track Collaboration with Michael Jackson!

In a new interview published by CTVglobemedia, it was confirmed that T-Pain worked with Michael Jackson on three different music tracks.
On the experience, T-Pain stated: "It was weird when I first saw him because, you know, he's Michael Jackson! And then, after he started talking, he was like a regular cool guy."
In October of 2008, T-Pain announced that he had finished two tracks with Michael Jackson, which indicates that the third track may have been recorded between November 2008 and now. Back in 2008, T-Pain announced: "I did two pieces with Michael Jackson, so I'm pretty much done; my list is all checked off... I just worked on [Michael Jackson's] new album. He actually invited me to his house. So I went to his house and it was pretty much that day where we just hung out. I never thought Michael Jackson would ever work with me. He actually sent for me, so that was kind of weird and cool at the same time." Whether or not any of these collaborations will appear on Michael Jackson's forthcoming album is unknown at this time--the same holds true for all collaborations that Michael Jackson has done since 2005.

Source: MJJR.net / CTVglobemedia / Boombox Music Blog

man darf gespannt sein, ob und wo diese tracks auftauchen...

dat janze ding hier:

He's no pop puppet. Yes, T-Pain even sings
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
January 19, 2009 at 5:05 PM EST

Midway through his concert at Toronto's Air Canada Centre last week, T-Pain did something unthinkable for a performer best known for synthesized sound: He sat down at a grand piano and put his real vocal chords to use.

After the performance, but before returning onstage to accompany the evening's marquee act Lil Wayne, T-Pain admitted that many of his fans have no idea he can actually sing.

“They do not realize it whatsoever because I just don't show it enough,” he said, still sweaty and fuelled from the action. “They feel like I'm just a regular artist – I get somebody to make the beats for me, I get somebody to write the songs and all I do is sing and dance in the middle.”

But T-Pain is much more than a pop-music puppet.

Over the past few years, he has churned out some of hip hop's catchiest hooks, from Kanye West's Good Life to Chris Brown's Kiss Kiss to Flo Rida's Low. Then there's his use – some would say abuse – of Auto-Tune software, which distorts his voice to robo-soul effect and has since become a corrective crutch for non-singers such as West and Snoop Dogg. And while T-Pain's third album, Thr33 Ringz, can be grating at times (Eric Clapton's Change the World plus Auto-Tune equals a double dose of treacle), it features some all-star collaborations, with Ludacris, Lil Wayne, Mary J. Blige, T.I., Akon, Brown and Diddy giving back the same love he has shown them.

During the show, T-Pain said his resolution for 2009 is to let everyone know that he writes, produces and sings his own music.

“I want people to know that I'm involved in everything I do. I'm not riding anybody's coattails. … No one else is making hits for me. I'm doing all this on my own,” he explained backstage.

T-Pain, who was born Faheem Rasheed Najm, grew up in Tallahassee, Fla. (hence the “T”). Only 23, he began his career as a rapper in a six-member group called Nappy Headz. But there was little opportunity to stand out from the pack, so he released his first album, Rappa Ternt Sanga (rapper turned singer, get it?), three years ago.

“Everyone started rapping in my city and it was just the same thing over and over again. … So I just had to do something else. It didn't necessarily have to be singing, I would have tap danced or played the sousaphone or the kazoo,” he said, followed by a loud, pronounced “ha ha ha.”

Even judging from appearances, the MC is a jester of sorts; rarely is he seen without a floppy fabric top hat (a signature that dates to 2006 after buying one in London on a lark), his white Oakley shades and a set of gaudy grills (on this evening, T-Pain's mouth flashed with white gold and diamonds and he claimed to have eight pairs in total).

He does, however, take his career personally. T-Pain signed with Akon's label, Konvict Muzik, in 2005, but has since launched Nappy Boy Entertainment (the guy's got a stage name and a nickname) and is slowly building a roster of artists such as Tay Dizm and Jay Lyriq.

“I'm trying to keep it light, because I don't want to turn into Akon [who] has 37 people on his label and they ain't putting nobody out yet except for Kardi,” he said, referring to Scarborough's own Kardinal Offishall. “I don't want that situation to happen to me, so I've got five artists. And until one of them drops heavy, I'm not getting another one.”

Incidentally, Offishall had stopped into the dressing room minutes earlier and T-Pain even suggested he would try to squeeze in a recording session with Canada's unofficial ambassador of hip hop (when they collaborated on Shottas, the result was a far rawer, dancehall sound than many chart-friendly tracks on Thr33 Ringz).

With lyrics that bounce between paying respect to strippers and lamenting the tragedy of suicides, T-Pain has said he merely writes about familiar experiences. There is no point, he insisted, in feeling responsible for communicating a larger message. “People have selective hearing anyways; you can send as many messages as you can throw out and [people will] just get the track they want.”

Having already won one Grammy plus many other industry awards, he has accomplished a lot in a short time and with little fanfare. He maintained that he has already crossed off his wish list of collaborators and he has lost count of how many songs bear his name. When asked about Michael Jackson – they just worked together on three songs – his answer was classic T-Pain.

“It was weird when I first saw him because, you know, he's Michael Jackson,” he explained. “And then, after he started talking, he was like a regular cool guy.”
Which, come to think of it, is a pretty accurate description of T-Pain himself. He has friends in high places (Diddy offered to rent out a theatre so he could see Notorious, the tribute to fallen rapper Notorious B.I.G.), but he expects he'll retreat from public life by the age of 30.

He currently lives in Atlanta, where he has two young kids and his wife is expecting their third. Although T-Pain flaunts a “playa” persona, he said his wedding ring never comes

off. “They say you get more female fans if you hide your wedding ring, and I'm like, if you have to get divorced to have fans, then I'd rather not have fans.”