BROUSSARD BEATS
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ill o.g.
T.I. Starts 'Filet Mignon' Beef With Lil' Flip At Birthday Bash
The lore of T.I. continued to grow in the last few days. On Saturday night, he had all of Atlanta talking about his dramatic stage performance during Hot 107.9's annual monster-mash concert, the Birthday Bash 9. He shocked cheering fans at the HiFi Buys Amphitheatre who thought he was in jail, and later added another surprise — he ignited a lyrical beef with fellow third-coast superstar, Houston's Lil' Flip.
The day before the concert, T.I. made national headlines and he didn't have to step one foot outside of jail — a female inmate at the Fulton County, Georgia, correctional facility escaped on Thursday while he was filming a small production in the same jail. Although officials say that the jailbreak is not connected to T.I., spokespeople for the prison have publicly denied that T.I.'s shoot was sanctioned and are investigating. The rapper, although not saying much, says he did no wrong.
"I ain't at liberty to speak on that," T.I. said on Saturday about the incident at Fulton County Jail. "Let's just say I ain't broke no laws, ain't no legal repercussions coming my way. I ain't done nothing wrong."
These days T.I. is working on "the buddy system" in full accordance with the law. He refuses to elaborate on the exact terms of his work-release program, but he does say he'll be free of his obligations by the end of the summer.
On March 30, T.I. turned himself in to authorities because of charges of parole violation. Despite going into lockdown at the height of his career while his biggest record ever, "Rubber Band Man," was wreaking havoc, the Bankhead, Georgia, native says he was willing to accept his judgment and was ready for his life to progress.
"I knew it wasn't going to be a lengthy period of time," he said on Friday at Atlanta's Patchwork studios about going to jail earlier this spring. "I knew it was just a small situation that had to be taken care of. Some dirt that needed to be swept under the rug and something that I just needed to handle so I could move forward and get on with my life."
When news first broke about T.I. being in prison, reports said that he would be doing a possible three years. This had some of his detractors celebrating his downfall. One MC in particular T.I. has chosen to single out is Lil' Flip, who, along with T.I., has been heralded as one of the forerunners of the new generation of Southern MCs.
"Basically the origins of this ain't beef, it's filet mignon to me," T.I. said on his tour bus on the way to the Birthday Bash concert. "He poses no threat to my health. Anytime he wants to see me, I have an open invitation. When I was gone, he made some comments. He saw fit to take shots at me while I was down. At his shows in Atlanta, he would ask people who was the king of the South. When my name was brought up — rightfully so — he said, 'OK, well tell T.I. I said game over.' "
Lil' Flip said T.I.'s allegations are coming from nowhere. He denied ever dissing T.I. publicly or in the studio and said the most he's said about T.I. was in a freestyle line: "I ride 24s like T.I."
"You know me, dawg. My career has been built off of straight rhyming," Flip said Monday (June 21). He even chuckled that T.I. would bring out pictures of him dressed in a leprechaun outfit, bragging, "I got $10 a disc for [my Leprechaun album.]"
The freestyle king said the only king of the South is Scarface and that T.I.'s dis was just for attention.
"I ain't have to dis nobody to get where I'm at," Flip continued. "But if it come to me, I'mma deal with it accordingly. He just got out of jail, so I guess he's been watching too much 'Oz.' He's pumped up."
T.I. said he heard about Flip's alleged comments from several sources and even has a recording of the remarks.
"I got you on tape," T.I. continued on the bus, holding up an old picture of Flip dressed in a leprechaun outfit. The photo was blown up and placed on several poster boards that read "Game Over???" which T.I.'s crew was holding. "You's a sucka, man! You sweet on the inside and even sweeter on the outside. I am not letting up on your ass, boy! You shouldn't have tried me, man. I gotta shut you down, pimp! You have been faking for entirely too long. The game over? Yes, the game is over ... For you, that is!" Upon his bus' arrival at the amphitheater, T.I.'s mood was on the upswing as Lil Scrappy, 8Ball and MJG, Kanye West, Killer Mike and Lil Jon all came up to show him love. After barely five minutes backstage, T.I., dressed in an orange jail suit, was told it was showtime.
"They say I've been gone for a long time," he told the cheering crowd. "Y'all welcoming me back? I'mma welcome y'all back to the trap," he said and started freestyling over Mase's beat for "Welcome Back."
"Everybody thought I was locked up and would miss the Birthday Bash," he told the crowd after he rapped. "Are y'all crazy? Ain't no jail can hold me, n---a!"
T.I. kept the crowd into his energized set with a performance of his classic "Dope Boyz," and he even brought it up to date with his guest verse from Memphis Bleek's "Round Here."
Then the bomb dropped.
He was given word that Lil' Flip, who was also on the bill but missed his plane and arrived late, was finally in the building. He challenged Flip to come out on the stage and tell him to his face who the king of the South was, then proceeded with another freestyle. (Flip's manager said that the security and radio-station personnel did not allow the freestyle king to take T.I. up on his offer.)
"Pu--- n---a I'm the leader of the troops, you just following suit," T.I. rapped while the crowd yelled "ooh" like kids in the school yard overhearing a snap session. "What kind of n---a take a picture in a leprechaun suit with a lollypop chain and some leprechaun boots?/ ... Being lame is a curse you can never undo."
When T.I. tried to segue into his next record, "Look What I Got," his mic and music were abruptly turned off. Amidst the chaos, the fans started booing and some people even started chanting, "F--- Flip!"
A voice came over the PA system alerting everyone that the Birthday Bash was over. T.I. was prepared to perform several more selections, including "Rubber Band Man" and a couple of records from his upcoming LP, Urban Legend.
Oddly enough, the fiery lyricist didn't have any hard feelings and chalked up his silencing to the show running overtime.
"That's what happens when you're the last one to go on," he said as he left the stage.
Mase: The Story Behind The Comeback
It's early spring in a Los Angeles recording studio and history is about to be made. Nelly is working on his two upcoming albums, Sweat and Suit. In walks his manager, Fo'Reel Entertainment CEO Cudda (pronounced "Cooter") Love, accompanied by a man he used to manage: the minister formerly known as Murder Mase.
Nelly's people are engaging in revelry, but once Mase walks in, the jokes come to a halt and everyone shows respect and love for the former Bad Boy, who's immaculately dressed in a three-piece suit. Nelly, who's working on a track called "I Still Love You," takes a shot in the dark.
He asks Cudda to ask the retired Mase to jump on the record.
After Nelly plays Mase the song a couple of times, the former shiny-suit man surprises everyone. Not only does he agree to rap on the record, he starts spitting with the swagger of the old Mase. There's no mic rust. Within minutes, everyone in the studio swarms into the control room, where the session is happening. Mason Betha is back.
Fast-forward a couple of months and a few miles to the Paramount Studios lot near Los Angeles. There, the video for Mase's Chris Robinson-directed video, "Welcome Back," is being made. "This is history!" Mase yells. He's still dipped in his gear, but this time he's wearing a yellow Polo shirt and shorts to match. His sneaker game is on point, too: yellow-and-aqua Air Force Ones that shine almost as brilliantly as the canary gold on his watch. His waves are so tight that if he were in fact in Uptown New York, everyone would say they were spinning.
"This is going to be a great day," he continues, his dimples bulging. That session with Nelly has led to this morning in Cali. After hearing Mase rap on the track, the light bulb went off in Cudda's head: Mase still has what it takes to make an album. The timing is perfect because, as Mase puts it, he's evolved as a man and a father (he's expecting his first child this year).
Mase and Cudda spent weeks working on the bulk of the album, aptly titled Welcome Back, on the down-low with a bunch of up-and-coming producers. So after an album's worth of material was done, all Mase had to do was call up P. Diddy and tell Puff he's returning.
"I left because I had to get my mind right," Mase says about April 4, 1999, the day he officially retired from the rap game to focus on religion. "I wasn't mentally ready to deal with how hip-hop was and the role I played in hip-hop. I had to do it for me and for the sake of my spirituality. The reason for me coming back is, now I can handle it. It won't control me; I control it. Before, I wasn't ready. Even [after] three years away, I wasn't ready to take this stand.
"Them days is over," Mase says, as he catches a bit more than an eyeful of a pair of models. "They gotta put some clothes on," he insists. His tone is, as usual, nonchalant, but his face is serious. "I want them to respect themselves. That's why we doing this, to be of influence. I don't want the young ladies with their shorts that short. I want the ladies to respect themselves. If I was her father, I wouldn't want her with her shorts that short.
"No cheeks out on a Mase video set," he adds, before pointing to his dimples. "Only these cheeks. We gonna teach the ladies they can still respect themselves and still be beautiful. That's what's up."
Besides, what would Mr. Betha's 'hood look like with half-naked women running around? "The concept of the video is from the 'Mister Rogers' [Neighborhood'] scene," Mase says. "I take the sneaker off and let everyone know 'It's gonna be a beautiful day.' After that, I walk outside and you see a young lady in a room, she has posters of me on the wall. She's been waiting five years for me to come back. She looks out the window and says, 'Wow, that's Mase!' Then she gets downstairs and by the time she gets there, it's too late: She missed me. Then we're just taking the video from scene to scene and showing the love and support that everyone has showed me.
"We didn't want it to be too controversial," he adds. "We just wanted something the people would buy into and just welcome me back."
Mase says Welcome Back won't have too many guest appearances, and there won't be any songs degrading women or even talking about "sexual acts." His time away from music has given him clarity.
"This time, what makes the music so beautiful is that I'm doing it from a clear-headed perspective," he explains. "Not feeling that I have to say this or I have to please these people. Now, it's just good music: vibrant, up-tempo, real good music. It's amazing that it still came out wonderful. There is a way you can make incredible music without following the so-called formula."
Despite the minister's religious beliefs, he didn't switch his style up drastically enough to alienate the fans. "It was simple," he says. "[After] being away for five years, there are still a lot of things I want to talk about, I just couldn't fit them all on the same album. But I didn't want to come back so different that it scared you. I wanted to do something that was beautiful that you could relate to, something that you can think is retro Mase. Then, as I grow as an artist, I'll allow the audience to grow with me."
Welcome Back is due in August.
The lore of T.I. continued to grow in the last few days. On Saturday night, he had all of Atlanta talking about his dramatic stage performance during Hot 107.9's annual monster-mash concert, the Birthday Bash 9. He shocked cheering fans at the HiFi Buys Amphitheatre who thought he was in jail, and later added another surprise — he ignited a lyrical beef with fellow third-coast superstar, Houston's Lil' Flip.
The day before the concert, T.I. made national headlines and he didn't have to step one foot outside of jail — a female inmate at the Fulton County, Georgia, correctional facility escaped on Thursday while he was filming a small production in the same jail. Although officials say that the jailbreak is not connected to T.I., spokespeople for the prison have publicly denied that T.I.'s shoot was sanctioned and are investigating. The rapper, although not saying much, says he did no wrong.
"I ain't at liberty to speak on that," T.I. said on Saturday about the incident at Fulton County Jail. "Let's just say I ain't broke no laws, ain't no legal repercussions coming my way. I ain't done nothing wrong."
These days T.I. is working on "the buddy system" in full accordance with the law. He refuses to elaborate on the exact terms of his work-release program, but he does say he'll be free of his obligations by the end of the summer.
On March 30, T.I. turned himself in to authorities because of charges of parole violation. Despite going into lockdown at the height of his career while his biggest record ever, "Rubber Band Man," was wreaking havoc, the Bankhead, Georgia, native says he was willing to accept his judgment and was ready for his life to progress.
"I knew it wasn't going to be a lengthy period of time," he said on Friday at Atlanta's Patchwork studios about going to jail earlier this spring. "I knew it was just a small situation that had to be taken care of. Some dirt that needed to be swept under the rug and something that I just needed to handle so I could move forward and get on with my life."
When news first broke about T.I. being in prison, reports said that he would be doing a possible three years. This had some of his detractors celebrating his downfall. One MC in particular T.I. has chosen to single out is Lil' Flip, who, along with T.I., has been heralded as one of the forerunners of the new generation of Southern MCs.
"Basically the origins of this ain't beef, it's filet mignon to me," T.I. said on his tour bus on the way to the Birthday Bash concert. "He poses no threat to my health. Anytime he wants to see me, I have an open invitation. When I was gone, he made some comments. He saw fit to take shots at me while I was down. At his shows in Atlanta, he would ask people who was the king of the South. When my name was brought up — rightfully so — he said, 'OK, well tell T.I. I said game over.' "
Lil' Flip said T.I.'s allegations are coming from nowhere. He denied ever dissing T.I. publicly or in the studio and said the most he's said about T.I. was in a freestyle line: "I ride 24s like T.I."
"You know me, dawg. My career has been built off of straight rhyming," Flip said Monday (June 21). He even chuckled that T.I. would bring out pictures of him dressed in a leprechaun outfit, bragging, "I got $10 a disc for [my Leprechaun album.]"
The freestyle king said the only king of the South is Scarface and that T.I.'s dis was just for attention.
"I ain't have to dis nobody to get where I'm at," Flip continued. "But if it come to me, I'mma deal with it accordingly. He just got out of jail, so I guess he's been watching too much 'Oz.' He's pumped up."
T.I. said he heard about Flip's alleged comments from several sources and even has a recording of the remarks.
"I got you on tape," T.I. continued on the bus, holding up an old picture of Flip dressed in a leprechaun outfit. The photo was blown up and placed on several poster boards that read "Game Over???" which T.I.'s crew was holding. "You's a sucka, man! You sweet on the inside and even sweeter on the outside. I am not letting up on your ass, boy! You shouldn't have tried me, man. I gotta shut you down, pimp! You have been faking for entirely too long. The game over? Yes, the game is over ... For you, that is!" Upon his bus' arrival at the amphitheater, T.I.'s mood was on the upswing as Lil Scrappy, 8Ball and MJG, Kanye West, Killer Mike and Lil Jon all came up to show him love. After barely five minutes backstage, T.I., dressed in an orange jail suit, was told it was showtime.
"They say I've been gone for a long time," he told the cheering crowd. "Y'all welcoming me back? I'mma welcome y'all back to the trap," he said and started freestyling over Mase's beat for "Welcome Back."
"Everybody thought I was locked up and would miss the Birthday Bash," he told the crowd after he rapped. "Are y'all crazy? Ain't no jail can hold me, n---a!"
T.I. kept the crowd into his energized set with a performance of his classic "Dope Boyz," and he even brought it up to date with his guest verse from Memphis Bleek's "Round Here."
Then the bomb dropped.
He was given word that Lil' Flip, who was also on the bill but missed his plane and arrived late, was finally in the building. He challenged Flip to come out on the stage and tell him to his face who the king of the South was, then proceeded with another freestyle. (Flip's manager said that the security and radio-station personnel did not allow the freestyle king to take T.I. up on his offer.)
"Pu--- n---a I'm the leader of the troops, you just following suit," T.I. rapped while the crowd yelled "ooh" like kids in the school yard overhearing a snap session. "What kind of n---a take a picture in a leprechaun suit with a lollypop chain and some leprechaun boots?/ ... Being lame is a curse you can never undo."
When T.I. tried to segue into his next record, "Look What I Got," his mic and music were abruptly turned off. Amidst the chaos, the fans started booing and some people even started chanting, "F--- Flip!"
A voice came over the PA system alerting everyone that the Birthday Bash was over. T.I. was prepared to perform several more selections, including "Rubber Band Man" and a couple of records from his upcoming LP, Urban Legend.
Oddly enough, the fiery lyricist didn't have any hard feelings and chalked up his silencing to the show running overtime.
"That's what happens when you're the last one to go on," he said as he left the stage.
Mase: The Story Behind The Comeback
It's early spring in a Los Angeles recording studio and history is about to be made. Nelly is working on his two upcoming albums, Sweat and Suit. In walks his manager, Fo'Reel Entertainment CEO Cudda (pronounced "Cooter") Love, accompanied by a man he used to manage: the minister formerly known as Murder Mase.
Nelly's people are engaging in revelry, but once Mase walks in, the jokes come to a halt and everyone shows respect and love for the former Bad Boy, who's immaculately dressed in a three-piece suit. Nelly, who's working on a track called "I Still Love You," takes a shot in the dark.
He asks Cudda to ask the retired Mase to jump on the record.
After Nelly plays Mase the song a couple of times, the former shiny-suit man surprises everyone. Not only does he agree to rap on the record, he starts spitting with the swagger of the old Mase. There's no mic rust. Within minutes, everyone in the studio swarms into the control room, where the session is happening. Mason Betha is back.
Fast-forward a couple of months and a few miles to the Paramount Studios lot near Los Angeles. There, the video for Mase's Chris Robinson-directed video, "Welcome Back," is being made. "This is history!" Mase yells. He's still dipped in his gear, but this time he's wearing a yellow Polo shirt and shorts to match. His sneaker game is on point, too: yellow-and-aqua Air Force Ones that shine almost as brilliantly as the canary gold on his watch. His waves are so tight that if he were in fact in Uptown New York, everyone would say they were spinning.
"This is going to be a great day," he continues, his dimples bulging. That session with Nelly has led to this morning in Cali. After hearing Mase rap on the track, the light bulb went off in Cudda's head: Mase still has what it takes to make an album. The timing is perfect because, as Mase puts it, he's evolved as a man and a father (he's expecting his first child this year).
Mase and Cudda spent weeks working on the bulk of the album, aptly titled Welcome Back, on the down-low with a bunch of up-and-coming producers. So after an album's worth of material was done, all Mase had to do was call up P. Diddy and tell Puff he's returning.
"I left because I had to get my mind right," Mase says about April 4, 1999, the day he officially retired from the rap game to focus on religion. "I wasn't mentally ready to deal with how hip-hop was and the role I played in hip-hop. I had to do it for me and for the sake of my spirituality. The reason for me coming back is, now I can handle it. It won't control me; I control it. Before, I wasn't ready. Even [after] three years away, I wasn't ready to take this stand.
"Them days is over," Mase says, as he catches a bit more than an eyeful of a pair of models. "They gotta put some clothes on," he insists. His tone is, as usual, nonchalant, but his face is serious. "I want them to respect themselves. That's why we doing this, to be of influence. I don't want the young ladies with their shorts that short. I want the ladies to respect themselves. If I was her father, I wouldn't want her with her shorts that short.
"No cheeks out on a Mase video set," he adds, before pointing to his dimples. "Only these cheeks. We gonna teach the ladies they can still respect themselves and still be beautiful. That's what's up."
Besides, what would Mr. Betha's 'hood look like with half-naked women running around? "The concept of the video is from the 'Mister Rogers' [Neighborhood'] scene," Mase says. "I take the sneaker off and let everyone know 'It's gonna be a beautiful day.' After that, I walk outside and you see a young lady in a room, she has posters of me on the wall. She's been waiting five years for me to come back. She looks out the window and says, 'Wow, that's Mase!' Then she gets downstairs and by the time she gets there, it's too late: She missed me. Then we're just taking the video from scene to scene and showing the love and support that everyone has showed me.
"We didn't want it to be too controversial," he adds. "We just wanted something the people would buy into and just welcome me back."
Mase says Welcome Back won't have too many guest appearances, and there won't be any songs degrading women or even talking about "sexual acts." His time away from music has given him clarity.
"This time, what makes the music so beautiful is that I'm doing it from a clear-headed perspective," he explains. "Not feeling that I have to say this or I have to please these people. Now, it's just good music: vibrant, up-tempo, real good music. It's amazing that it still came out wonderful. There is a way you can make incredible music without following the so-called formula."
Despite the minister's religious beliefs, he didn't switch his style up drastically enough to alienate the fans. "It was simple," he says. "[After] being away for five years, there are still a lot of things I want to talk about, I just couldn't fit them all on the same album. But I didn't want to come back so different that it scared you. I wanted to do something that was beautiful that you could relate to, something that you can think is retro Mase. Then, as I grow as an artist, I'll allow the audience to grow with me."
Welcome Back is due in August.
