T-Pain Album: “Epiphany [Bonus Track]”

Should be the unabridged name of this artist. One listen you'll feel it too. Roger Troutman would be ashamed.

Tallahassee, Florida's T-Pain (A.K.A. Faheem Najm) delivers his sophomore album with "Epiphany" (2007) a seventeen track release which features appearances from Akon, Shawna, Ray, Tay Dizm, Yung Joc, J Lyriq, Kardinal Offishal & Cham (Teddy Verseti, Teddy Pain and Teddy Penderazdoun - are T-Pain alter-egos). Being a fan of Akon, I am interested in the artist's that are signed to his label Konvict Music. On his debut album "

" T-Pain delivered two winning radio singles ( I'm Sprung, I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)), while to me the rest of the release was less then memorable. The lead single on this album is "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" a collaboration between T-Pain and Yung Joc - a simple but catchy track which has blown up on the radio. I was surprised to find myself liking this track, though I have read it borrow's a lot from other artists. Akon makes his sole appearance on the second single "Bartender", another smooth on point collaboration which vibes well. Outside of the single's this album has one other memorable track's - "I Got It" precedes the powerful "Suicide". The first track has a man learning that he and his loved one have HIV, while the later track is about the aftermath and the choices they take. Outside of these track's the rest of the album does not grab my attention - T-Pain is not a memorable rapper (and should really leave it alone) and falters at times in his singing, and the guest he enlists for this release (outside of the singles) do not enhance the album. "Epiphany" is an average release which features some decent singles.

I have a grasp of the english language that is so awe-inspiring that it leaves you numb. That is why releases like this one really annoy me. Can we go ahead and retire the word "shawty"? It's a dumb word and I don't like it. I also think it is dumb to buy someone a "drank". This kind of stuff makes kids talk like they have not ever been to school. I know these kids go to school and Mr. Pain probably went to school at some point. His teacher right now is unhappy because he uses words that his teacher did not teach him.

The beats on this? Average. The lyrics? Average. The grammar? Well below average. I can't give this thing stars for setting the king's english back. Average and I went roller skating in 1985. I haven't seen average since.

T-Pain. This is exactly the type of hip-hop that making what was once a creative and fun genere, into a lousy and laughable mess. There is nothing creative at all about this artist, and he sounds no different then the any of other rappers from the south. First off, Southern hip-hop is not for everyone, as it does have a bit more of a unique sound, but the problem with it is that most of the artist have such a simlilar delivery that makes it hard to figure out a whos who. The huge problem that I have with T-Pain is when he mixes in his so-called slow jams, which is the biggest, heaping pile of doggie doo that I have ever heard since New Kids on the Block. I give the boy bands of the 80's and 90's more credit though. They might not have wrote their own songs, and the lyrics were beyond cheesy, but T-Pain takes the cake of the most talentless and revolting off them all. First off, how much talent does it take to run your voice through a synth box or whatever other effects he is using? I mean every slow jam, the same effect, the same tone, sounds just like the teacher in Charlie Brown. Wah, Wahhh, Wahhwaaa.. Even in metal, espcially death metal, at least the singers/screamers create their grunts and groans naturally without effects. The use their stomachs to create the growls, and their throats for some of the higher end shrills, but almost all dont use voice EQ's or electric harmoniziers. Every single slow jam sounds exactly the same way and it is revolting. It makes me cringe that this guy is all over the airwaves of hip-hop stations (the only reason I even turn on the hip-hop station is to listen to the old school shows that they run, but tune in 15min early or listen to the radio, and somewhere this wind bag will be on the dial, making my ears bleed. Please, why in gods name did this bag of wind get signed? I am sure that others will argue with me and say well why listen to it if you dont like hip-hop.( from judging my reviews, you see metal as my favorite) I do like hip-hop, and I am always trying to find some more modern artist that are good(Common, Kayne West as two of the better modern hip-hop artist). Its very difficult, as there are only a handful, as hip-hop gets ruined by this. And No, thank God I didnt buy this, but I heard it through downloads just to see if it was really that bad, and it is. Hopefully this junk will stop getting record-deals, and making room for artist that actually have talent. Jive records, one of the older hip-hop labels that once had the recordings of A tribe Called Quest, Spice 1, and Too Short, should hang its head in shame.

It's said that T-Pain (Faheem Najm) recorded a personal take one of Akon's songs and when Akon heard it, he immediatly signed him to his Konvict label. T-Pain's debut album "Rappa Ternt Sanga" he managed to get 2 top 10 hits with "I'm Sprung" and "I'm N Luv (Wit A Stripper)" with Mike Jones. His topics are neither very deep or multiple. Basically he dealt with sex and clubbing on most of the songs and apart from these 2 hits, the rest of the album wasn't that special. But T-Pain appeared on countless of other artists albums, mostly singing hooks and he suddenly became a in-demand artist in the R&B world. T-Pain is mostly a R&B singer but he's occasionally a rapper aswell kind of like Akon, but T-Pain uses a vocoder to generate his voice, kind of like Roger Troutman did in the 80's with Zapp and what Cher did on her megahit "Believe". Unfortunately T-Pain overuses this tecnique to the point that it gets redundant and un-natural and it makes you wonder wether he would be as fascinating without?. I'll see wether his sophmore album offers more then his debut.

His sophmore album is tited "Epiphany" but I don't know why cause there isn't anything religious or serious by this album at all. It seems like it follows the formula of his debut in detail. Just like his debut album it also got 2 hit singles, mainly the overplayed "Buy U a Drank" with Young Joc reaching #1 that a club song that deals with getting tipsy and hooking up with ladies. The other song is called "Bartender" (with Akon) and is almost "I'm N Luv (Wit A Stripper)" Part 2 but ex-changing the Stripper for Bartender. Both are decent club songs but with nonsense lyrics but I doubt most people care aslong as they're catchy. After that the album is flooded with mediocracy. Another song about drinking called "Tipsy". Songs like "Backseat Action", "69" and "Yo Stomach" deal with what you think they deal about. "Tallahassee Love" is a song about his hometown and "Time Machine" about traveling to another world, but it's really silly, "Church" is a fastpaced song that doesn't seem to be about a church at all. Here we find Teddy Verseti, one of several T-Pain alter ego's that are featured on this album, Teddy Pain, and Teddy Penderazdoun are the others but all of those lyrics and sang by T-Pain and no one else. A failed attempt to crossover on the reggae inspired "Shottas" with Kardinal Offishall is bad while the only serious songs seems to be "Right Hand" about sticking to a woman and the phonecall interlude "I Got It" where his woman calls him up and tells him that she got HIV and he may have it too. As serious and sensitive as the issue is it feels missplaced on an album where half of the songs deals with clubbing, drinking and to have sex.

Overall, T-Pain doesn't offer much variety of songs nor in topics. Many songs sound like they could have been the same song and few offer much depth in lyrics and I still kind of wonder what he would be without that vocoder as his gimmick?. Let just be honest, his hits are cool and fun for the moment but will be forgotten quickly and T-Pain works well as a colourful sidekick for other artists but when it comes to his own alhums he's inadequate and his ideas one-sided. Ofcourse he doesn't get much help from Konvict Music in production nor guest spots, maybe this is why he created three alter egos?. But T-Pain ends up as a poor mans R. Kelly making Akon B-sides with a fetish for Roger Troutman's vocoder. Seing that this album debuted at #1 on the album charts I feel sorry for others that bought it with the impression that it was something else, cause it's bad really bad.