On Thursday (April 1), T.I. had his first on-camera interview since completing his jail sentence, revealing a few more details about his upcoming album and speaking for the first time about his time behind bars.
“I’m happy to be home,” Tip said during the interview, posted on his TrapMuzik.com Web site. “I feel better than I’ve ever felt. I learned a lot, grew a lot. Now, I think it’s time to put all that to good use.”
The multi-platinum Grammy-winning rapper has been working on his yet-untitled next album (due August 24) but said that he wasn’t feeling creative behind the prison walls.
“I didn’t write too much. People might have thought I was doing a lot of writing, but I didn’t write that much,” Tip said. “I didn’t get a lot of time to. It was a lot of activity around me, so I really wasn’t motivated to create.”
The first song from his album is called “I’m Back.” The tone of the LP is vintage Tip.
“I want to maintain the level of success I’ve been fortunate enough to do over and over again over the years,” Tip said. “This album is different in many ways. I think that Paper Trail was a lot more about thoughts; this is more about feelings. This is significantly more aggressive, or at least at this period in production. Who knows? I can do 10 love songs tomorrow and change the direction. At this point, right now, it’s going hard. It’s going hard like classic T.I.”
T.I. was sentenced to a year and a day in jail last March stemming from a 2007 arrest for attempting to illegally purchase firearms.