He Raps. He Sings. The T-Wayne Project

Article written by: Jennifer D. Carroll
Posted on: January 3, 2009

Ask a room full of hip hop and R & B fans:  who were the top two artists that came out with some of the hottest club bangers of 2008? Undoubtedly Lil Wayne and T Pain will be brought up.

Regardless of what you think of their respective styles, these two have made strong names for themselves in the highly competitive world of Hip Hop and Hip Hop Soul. Their music ruled the top of the charts this year and everything they touched went platinum.

Both musicians are known for their collaborations with other artists. They teamed up this year to do the ‘make it rain’ strip club anthem, “Got Money” and the curiously romantic, “Can’t Believe It”- both of which were huge successes on the charts.

Now the latest buzz is flying about their full album collaboration, T Wayne – The Project.

Back in the early summer the streets started buzzing about the proposed project, but few industry insiders thought that it would actually come to fruition.

But those doubts were soon put to rest when T Pain expressed during an interview for his new Thr33 Rings album, “That’s going down, heavily”. Although these two have been both busy promoting their individual albums and on separate tours, they have still managed to collaborate on T-Wayne by sending tracks back and forth to each other.

“He’s sending me blank tracks, I’m sending him blank tracks,” Pain said. “He’s sending me tracks with hooks, I’m sending him tracks with hooks. It’s just our hectic schedules are keeping us from recording. … But we both have studios on the bus. So we take that tour bus anywhere we go — it’s a done deal.”

It is likely to get a lot easier for them to work together on T-Wayne over the next few months. T-Pain has joined headliner Lil Wayne on the ‘I Am Music Tour’ that also includes Gym Class Heroes, Keri Hilson, and Keyshia Cole.

T-Pain does acknowledge that there is potential for delays if the mega-producers who have expressed an interest in the project – Timbaland, Pharrell Williams, and Kanye West – get involved.

“If anything, we ain’t making no goals [for the date],” T-Pain told. “If we really gotta do it as an album and all those labels gotta work together, it’ll come out like, two years from now. [So] if it just falls into a bunch of leaks or if it falls into a mixtape, [that’s fine]. We might just take the songs we’ve got [and say]: ‘Here you go world. T-Wayne project. Right up. For free.”

Mixtape or album, I think it can be agreed that when the project drops the streets will be listening.