T-Pain is reflecting on a dark period in his life.
The “I Like Dat” rapper reveals that he became depressed after Usher told him he “fu**ed up music” while on a flight to the 2013 BET Awards.
“He was, like, ‘Man, I want to tell you something, man.’ He was like, ‘Man, you kind of fu**ed up music,’” recalled an emotional T-Pain in a clip from Netflix’s upcoming series “This Is Pop” (via EW).
“I didn’t understand. Usher was my friend. He was like, ‘Nah, man, you really fu**ed up music for real singers,’” T-Pain said.
He started to question whether Usher was right. “Literally, at that point, I couldn’t listen. Is he right? Did I f**k up music?” asked T-Pain. “I was like, ‘What did I do? I came out and I used Auto-Tune.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, you fu**ed it up.’ I’m like, ‘But I used it, I didn’t tell everybody else to start using it.’”
T-Pain said that moment triggered what would become a four-year depression. “That is the very moment, and I don’t even think I realized this for a long time, but that’s the very moment that started a four-year depression for me,” he said.
A few years earlier, JAY-Z famously criticized the use of Auto-Tune on “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)” off his 2009 album The Blueprint 3.
T-Pain recently made headlines after he revealed that Nicki Minaj turned down a collaboration with him early on in her career. “She was like, ‘Hey, I’m an artist too and I’m working on my shit, so ya know, baby chill,’” he said during an interview with “Desus & Mero.”