Now some folks might claim that it's a crime that T-Pain is as famous as he is. But purchasing a drank for a shawty over 21 and penning a subsequent hit single about it is perfectly legal. Misinformation!
This does not mean that Teddy Paindergrass (real name: Faheem Rasheed Najm) has never skirted the law -- and in entertaining fashion, at that. In his new book, Dirty South: OutKast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop, intrepid scribe Ben Westhoff managed to coax the hilarious story of how the musician's pal boosted a "whole studio" of recording equipment from a CompUSA location. These illegally procured items were later used to assemble Pain's 2005 breakout album Rappa Ternt Sanga.
Hear the details of the Comp caper below:
For more on T-Pain's controversial rise to Auto-Tune prominence, check out an excerpt from Westhoff's book featured in this week's print edition.
And, if it isn't painfully obvious from that excerpt, Village Voice's portion dealing with Scarface from Geto Boys getting on his old psychiatrist's lazy ass and Westhoff chasing 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell through the Atlanta airport featured in Miami New Times, this is a page-turner. We turned every single one of them earlier this year, and there are few books about hip-hop that display an equal depth of research, writing vigor, and an unabashed love for every subject involved -- even Nelly!
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