T-Pain

Bartender (T-Pain song)

The video premiered on Yahoo! Music on June 13, 2007 as the Bonus Video. It features T-Pain dancing in front of a bar and flirting with the "Bartender". BET's Access Granted also premiered the video on June 13, 2007. Because the song was released on Minneapolis rock star Prince 's birthday, it was played at his 49th birthday party.

There are remixes featuring The-Dream and Trae.

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T-Pain

Faheem Rasheed Najm (born September 30, 1985), better known by his stage name T-Pain, is an American hip hop, R&B singer-songwriter, rapper, and producer known for his use of auto-tune. He began his career as a rapper in the group Nappy Headz. In 2005, his debut album Rappa Ternt Sanga was released and spawned the hits "I'm Sprung" and "I'm N Luv". Since the release of that album, T-Pain has produced numerous hits of his own and for other rappers and R&B singers. T-Pain has also had over 10 top ten singles on Billboard Hot 100. In 2008, he won a Grammy with rapper Kanye West for the single "Good Life".

T-Pain was born Faheem Rasheed Najm on September 30, 1985 in Tallahassee, Florida. At the age of ten, Najm reworked his bedroom into a small studio with a keyboard, beat machine and four-track recorder, and began composing music. He graduated from James S. Rickards High School. His stage name is short for "Tallahassee Pain" and was chosen because of the hardships he felt while living there. He is Muslim.

T-Pain recorded his version of Akon's single "Locked Up", titled "Fucked Up". Akon noticed the song and immediately signed T-Pain to Konvict Muzik. T-Pain recorded his first album under the label, Rappa Ternt Sanga, which meant he wanted to be a rapper, but he instead turned to be a singer. The first single is "I'm Sprung". The second single is "I'm N Luv (Wit A Stripper)", featuring Mike Jones. The album debuted at #33 on the Billboard 200, eventually reaching gold.

In 2007, his second album Epiphany came out, with the club-oriented singles "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" featuring Yung Joc and "Bartender" featuring Akon. Both singles were in the Top 5. Epiphany debuted at the top spot of the US Billboard 200 chart, and has sold about 1,000,000 units as of May 2008. being the first number-one album of his career. During that time, he appeared on the singles "I'm a Flirt" remix by R. Kelly with T.I., "Outta My System" by Bow Wow, "Baby Don't Go" by Fabolous, "I'm So Hood" by DJ Khaled with many other rappers, "Shawty" by Plies, "Kiss Kiss" by Chris Brown, "Low" by Flo Rida, and "Good Life" by Kanye West. "Good Life" won the BET Award for the Best Collaboration and was nominated in several other categories. In 2008, the single won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song.

His third album Thr33 Ringz was released on November 11, 2008.. "Can't Believe It", featuring Lil Wayne, was the first single; the video premiered on BET on August 26. "Chopped & Skrewed", featuring Ludacris, is the second single in this album. "Freeze", featuring Chris Brown, is confirmed to be the third single. Guest appearances on Thr33 Ringz include T.I., Lil Wayne, Ludacris, DJ Khaled, Ciara, Chris Brown, Kanye West and many more. Pr33 Ringz was the introduction mixtape for the album.

In 2008, T-Pain continued to appear on numerous charting rap singles, such as "She Got It" by 2 Pistols, "Go Girl" by Ciara, "The Boss" by Rick Ross, "Cash Flow" by Ace Hood, "Shawty Get Loose" by Lil Mama, "One More Drink" by Ludacris, and "Go Hard" by DJ Khaled with Kanye West. T-Pain and Ludacris collaborated to perform "Chopped & Skrewed" and "One More Drink" on American late-night television programs Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC November 14, 2008 and Saturday Night Live on NBC November 22, 2008.

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Can't Believe It

The video premiered on BET's Access Granted on Monday August 25th, 2008 at 7:30pm.. It was made in front of a green screen and features many special effects. The video is mostly based on T-Pain's Thr33 Ringz, the music video had many effects from the circus.

Dolla and the entire Nappy Boy Entertainment roster (Tay Dizm, Jay Lyriq, Sophia Fresh and Young Cash) makes a cameo appearance towards the end of the video.

Rapper 50 Cent has made a remix for the song. In the remix, he announces that Before I Self Destruct, a new video game called 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, a new movie (Before I Self Destruct), and a new MTV show (The Money & The Power) will come out during the 4th quarter of 2008. The Konvict remix was released which features Kardinal Offishall and Akon was released on November 4. Hot Rod, Bow Wow, Trey Songz, and Trae also made individual remixes. On November 7th 2008, one week before the release of the album, the official remix of the song was released and features Justin Timberlake.The official remix with Timberlake was released onto iTunes on Tuesday December 9, 2008. 2 versions of this remix exist; one contains a verse by Justin Timberlake and a duet verse by Timberlake and T-Pain, the other version contains 2 verses by Justin Timberlake and no new T-Pain verses. At the end of the song, T-Pain states "Auto-tune is on it's way out", implying that other artists need to quit using the autotune.

R&B Singer JoJo has made a cover to this song.

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Yung Joc

Jasiel Robinson (born April 2, 1983), better known by his stage name Yung Joc is a Grammy Award-nominated American rapper from College Park, Georgia.

Yung Joc is also featured on the songs "Show Stopper" by Danity Kane (from Diddy's Making The Band 4) & Cassie's album track Call U Out. Despite the rumors, he is not related to rapper Young Jeezy. Yung Joc is on 2006 "Forbes' Richest Rappers List", ranking at #20, having grossed approximately $10 million in 2006.

Yung Joc was discovered by Russell "Block" Spencer after gaining fame in Atlanta with "It's Going Down" and "I Know You See It." In 2006, Yung Joc released his debut album New Joc City. The first single, "It's Goin' Down" charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Hip Hop chart. This single was produced by Nitti. A video was released on youtube. His second single, "I Know You See It" charted at #17 on the top 100 chart. His third single, "1st Time" was less successful. This song features Marques Houston and the video version added Trey Songz. Guest appearance on the album included Boyz n da Hood, Marques Houston, and many others. It is certified platinum, selling a million copies in the U.S.

Yung Joc was featured on other artists' singles including Danity Kane's "Show Stopper", Lil Boosie's "Zoom", and T-Pain's "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')". Yung Joc released his second album, Hustlenomics, on August 28, 2007. Guest appearances included The Game, Jim Jones, Bun B, Young Dro, Gorilla Zoe, Trick Daddy, Diddy, and Jazze Pha.

Yung Joc plans to release his third studio album Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood on Swagg Team Entertainment under Jive Records sometime in 2009. The album title references his legal name.

He owns two automobile-related companies, as well as a sunglasses line which will be debuting soon called Claudio St. James. Joc and his father will work together to manage the sunglasses line. Joc has also been said to have a new record label through Jive Records, called Swagg Team Entertainment. This label will see the debut from Chicago group Hotstylz; their first single will be "Lookin Boy".

On March 23rd, 2008, Yung Joc appeared at the Exodus tour event. At the event Yung Joc gave his testimony about being a christian. He went on to say, "I'm not trying to be a preacher, but God is real in my life." The event was coordinated and sponsored by Corey "CoCo Brother" Condrey, who hosts a radio show called "The Spirit of Hip-Hop," which tries to bring rap and gospel music together to promote christianity.

Yung Joc has a son he has spoken about few times in songs but no mother has been announced.

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Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')

It's noted for having many references to other popular dance/rap songs. Lil Scrappy's song "Money in the Bank" is referenced in the chorus with the line, "I got money in the bank / Shawty what you think about that". Towards the middle you can hear the line "You don't know me" referring to T.I.'s "U Don't Know Me". At the beginning, you hear the line, "Snap yo fingers, do your step, you can do it all by yourself", a lead line from the Lil Jon song, "Snap Yo Fingers". Also he states "back to the crib, show you how I live" refers to 50 Cent's "Just a Lil Bit". At the end of the second verse, T-Pain says 'On That Patrón You Should Get Like Me', referencing Yung Joc's "It's Goin' Down" off his album New Joc City. Later on in the song, T-Pain takes a line from the single by Unk, "Walk It Out" when he says, "...Walk it out." Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007.

The song debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 84 on the issue date of March 10, 2007. On the issue date of May 12, 2007 the single became T-Pain's first and Yung Joc's second number 1 single on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. On the same Billboard magazine issue date, "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" became T-Pain's highest charting single on the Billboard Hot 100 to date, surpassing the number 5 peak of "I'm 'n Luv (Wit a Stripper)". On the issue date of May 26, 2007, "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" reached number 1, becoming T-Pain as well as Yung Joc's first number 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100.

The music video premiered on April 9, 2007 on MTV and features cameos from various artists such as E-40, Gorilla Zoe, Huey, Tay Dizm, Ryan Shaw, Shawnna, Jay Lyriq, Kardinal Offishall, Brandon T. Jackson and many others.

The official remix on the single also features Kanye West and UGK. There are also other remixes that features Stat Quo and T.I. respectively. Another remix available at Track Fiends.net has St. Louis rapper Chingy on the first verse.

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Chris Brown (entertainer)

Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American recording artist and actor. Brown made his recording debut in late 2005 with Chris Brown at the age of 16. The album featured the hit single "Run It!", which topped the Billboard Hot 100, making Brown the first male artist to have his debut single to top the chart. The album has sold over two million copies in the United States and was certified double Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Brown's second studio album, Exclusive was released worldwide in November 2007. It spawned two successful singles; his second U.S. number one hit, "Kiss Kiss" featuring T-Pain and "With You", which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Brown has released a deluxe version of his album called the The Forever Edition. The first single off of it, "Forever", was released in May 2008 and reached number two on Billboard Hot 100. Exclusive has been certified Platinum by the RIAA.

In addition to his solo commercial success, Brown has been featured on several hits such as "No Air", a duet with singer Jordin Sparks, "Shortie like Mine" with the rapper Bow Wow and "Shawty Get Loose" alongside Lil Mama and T-Pain. The songs have peaked on number three, number nine and number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 respectively. Due to his dance routines, Brown has been compared to renowned R&B artists such as Usher and Michael Jackson, citing both as large influences on his music.

Brown was born and raised in the small town of Tappahannock, Virginia, the son of Joyce Hawkins and Clinton Brown. He began dancing at the age of two and began singing in his church choir. He was influenced by the soul albums his parents owned. Originally interested in becoming a rapper, he chose to become a vocalist when his mother noticed his singing voice.

From the ages seven to thirteen, Brown was scarred by the domestic violence his mother endured from her boyfriend. He claims to "hate him to this day".

At the age of thirteen, Brown and his mother began looking for opportunities of a record deal. He was discovered by a local production team who visited his father's gas station while searching for new talent. In 2004, Tina Davis, senior A&R executive at Def Jam Recordings at the time, was on the verge of signing Brown, but lost her job. The following day, she became his manager and landed him with a contract with Jive Records a week later. By early 2005, Brown began work for his debut album, working with the likes of Scott Storch, The Underdogs, Dre & Vidal, Bryan-Michael Cox, Bow Wow, and Jermaine Dupri.

Brown left school in late 2004 to begin working on his self-titled debut album which was released in November 2005. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 selling over 155,000 copies in first week of sales. It sold over 2.1 million copies in the United States and over three million copies worldwide. His debut single, "Run It!", was number one in the United States, New Zealand, and Australia. Following "Run It!" "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" became Brown's second top 10 hit in the U.S., peaking at number seven, and number 13 in the UK. It has been certified platinum by the RIAA.

His third single, "Gimme That", was released in March 2006 which featured Lil Wayne for a remix, originally not featured on the album, but was later included. The single debuted on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at number 80 and climbed the charts quickly peaking at number 15. Brown also co-directed his music videos for "Yo (Excuse Me Miss)" and "Gimme That." His fourth single is the ballad "Say Goodbye," which is also a part of the Step Up soundtrack. On June 13, 2006, Brown released a DVD entitled, Chris Brown's Journey, which shows footage of him traveling in England and Japan, getting ready for his first visit to the Grammy Awards, behind the scenes of his music videos and bloopers.

On August 17, 2006 to further promote the album, Brown began his major co-headlining tour, The Up Close and Personal Tour. Due to the tour, production for his next album was pushed back two months. Brown was also the opening act for R&B singer Beyoncé Knowles on the Australian leg of her The Beyoncé Experience tour.

Brown has made appearances on UPN's One on One and The N's Brandon T. Jackson Show on its pilot episode. In addition, Brown landed a small role as a band geek in the fourth season of Fox's The O.C. in January 2007. Brown then made his film debut in Stomp the Yard, alongside Ne-Yo, Meagan Good and Columbus Short in January 2007. Brown next appeared in This Christmas, a family drama starring Regina King, released on November 21, 2007. On July 9, 2007, Brown was featured in an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16 (for the event, it was retitled: Chris Brown: My Super 18) celebrating his eighteenth birthday in New York City. Brown also guest-starred on Disney's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody as himself. Brown is expected to star in the basketball drama film Phenom.

Shortly after ending his summer tour with Ne-Yo, Brown quickly began production for his second studio album, Exclusive, which was released in November 2007. The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling 294,000 copies in its first week. It has sold 1.9 million copies in the United States.

According to MTV News, Brown stated: "I am still going to keep it so my younger fans can continue to listen to my music, but I got a couple of joints on there that's for some of the older people." The album's first single, "Wall to Wall," debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 96, and peaked at number 79 and number 22 on the Billboard R&B and Hip-Hop Chart becoming his lowest charting song to date. "Kiss Kiss", featuring and produced by T-Pain, was released as the second single. "Kiss Kiss," became more successful surpassing the success of "Wall To Wall," reaching number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 to become Chris' second number one single and his highest chart peak since "Run It!" in 2005.

On December 4, 2007, Brown released the third single from "Exclusive," entitled "With You", a song produced by Stargate. "With You" reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and had entered the charts in various countries around the world, becoming one of Brown's most successful released to date, entering the top ten in New Zealand, Singapore, Canada, the United States, Cyprus, Ireland, France, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, and Australia.

Brown re-released Exclusive on June 3, 2008 as a deluxe edition, renamed Exclusive: The Forever Edition, seven months after the release of the original version. The re-released version featured four new tracks, including the single "Forever" which reached number two on Billboard Hot 100.

In support of the album, Brown embarked on his The Exclusive Holiday concert tour, visiting over thirty venues in United States. He started the tour in Cincinnati, Ohio, on December 6, 2007 and concluded it on February 9, 2008 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The documented footage was released on June 3, 2008 as the double disc of Exclusive: The Forever Edition. He performed "With You" at the BET Awards '08 in June 2008. He was then joined by Ciara to dance with him to a snippet of the song "Take You Down".

Brown, alongside The Game, is featured on Nas' untitled album on "Make the World Go Round," co-produced by the The Game and Cool & Dre. He is also featured alongside Sean Garrett for Ludacris' single "What Them Girls Like" off Ludacris's album Theater of the Mind. He was also featured on T-Pain's third single "Freeze" off T-Pain's new album Thr33 Ringz. Brown was named the top artist of 2008 by Billboard magazine. Brown released his single "Take You Down" in January 2009 in the UK and Ireland.

Brown turned himself in to the Los Angeles Police Department's Wilshire station on February 8, 2009 and was booked on suspicion of making criminal threats, while under investigation for domestic violence charges, following an argument with fellow singer and girlfriend Rihanna in Los Angeles's Hancock Park. The police report did not name the female in the incident as is policy, but stated that the female had "suffered visible injuries."However, various news media such as the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and MSNBC said that sources had identified the alleged victim as Rihanna. The Los Angeles Times reported that he is being represented by defense attorney Mark Geragos, and according to Fox News, Brown has hired public relations expert Michael Sitrick to counter the wave of bad press that Brown has received.. Following his arrest, several of his commercial ads were suspended, his music was withdrawn from multiple radio stations, and he withdrew from public appearances, including one at the 2009 Grammy Awards, where he was replaced by Justin Timberlake and Al Green.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital received $50,000 in ticket proceeds from Brown's 2006 "Up Close & Personal" tour. In 2008, Brown lent his efforts to promote the Math-A-Thon benefiting that hospital by starring as the host in a film to promote it.

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Thr33 Ringz

Thr33 Ringz is the third studio album by Grammy-winning American R&B singer-songwriter T-Pain. It was released in the U.S. on November 11, 2008 (see 2008 in music), debuting at #4 on the Billboard 200 at #1 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart.

T-Pain stated that the album's prominent circus theme, "...came from people telling me that I’m running the game, that I'm the ringleader of the game. That's where the whole circus imagery came from. I started putting it together with the idea that the circus is just like the music industry. You’ve got your different acts, all of the different animals, etc." He has extended this concept with his album and single covers, tailored to resemble carnival flyers, as well as with his music videos and style of dress. Most significantly, at the 2008 BET Awards, where he wore a flamboyant, silver and black, designer circus-ringleader outfit with a matching top hat and the MTV 2008 Video Music Awards, where he won #1 Best Entrance by arriving on an elephant.

The album was originally set to be released on September 30, the same day as his birthday, but it was changed because of controversy towards the song "Silver & Gold." However, the album as well as its deluxe edition was released on November 11, 2008, and he produced the entire album himself. The song "Can't Believe It" is the first single and was confirmed by T-Pain's blog. Originally "Snap Yo Fingers" also featuring Lil Wayne was set to be the first single. However "Snap Yo Fingers" was cut from the album and is the first single on the T-pain and Lil Wayne album(He Raps,He Sings) under the name T-Wayne. The second single is "Chopped & Skrewed" featuring Ludacris. The third single is "Freeze" featuring Chris Brown. He had performed two other songs from his album, he performed "Bad Side" at the Indig02 Arena in London and he performed "Ringleader Man" at the 2008 BET Awards. Guest appearances include Ludacris, Chris Brown, Ciara, Lil Wayne, Akon, T.I., Kanye West, Musiq Soulchild, Raheem DeVaughn, Diddy, Mary J. Blige and DJ Khaled. Also includes Jay Lyriq, Young Ca$h and Tay Dizm of Nappy Boy Entertainment. So far, Akon and Tay Dizm are the only two artists to appear on this album as well as Rappa Ternt Sanga and Epiphany. T-Pain also collaborated with Rick Ross, on "What It Do", Busta Rhymes on "Dance for Me," and an unnamed track with Rihanna for his new album, however all 3 failed to make the final tracklisting. On October 30, the album was accidentally released on iTunes. It was removed a few hours later. The songs were still available for individual download.

Videos for the other two singles, "Chopped & Skrewed" featuring Ludacris and "Freeze" featuring Chris Brown, have been made and are both directed by Syndrome. "Chopped N Skrewed" is the second single and "Freeze" is the third single. Both singles peaked at #29 & #38, respectively on the Billboard 100.

The song "Ringleader Man" which T-Pain performed at the 2008 BET Awards has been released as a promotional single, on October 28 as part of the "iTunes Countdown to Thr33 Ringz". This song is notable as T-Pain sings without using Autotune for its signature robotic effect, while he still may use Autotune to more subtly correct his pitch.

The music video for "Karaoke" was released on October 30. The video features cameo appearances by Kanye West and Akon. The video was shot on DJ Khaled's "Go Hard" video shoot. Unlike his previous music videos from the album, this video does not use a green screen.

The cover of T-Pain's first three singles in this album are generally the same. The only differences are the name, the head of the featuring artist, the color, the design of T-Pain's top hat, along with the design of his sunglasses.

Prior to the release of the album, a mixtape entitled Pr33 Ringz was released. A promo single, "Superman," was released to promote the mixtape.

Thr33 Ringz debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200, selling over 167,700 copies in its first week. The album currently sold about 700,000 copies so far (World-Wide).

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