Few people on earth travel as often as professional athletes (and multi-platinum recording artists!) With On the Road, the GQ Sports Travel Questionnaire, they’re weighing in on everything from room service to flying comfortably to their favorite chain restaurants.
Yes, T-Pain is the man who once dared to rhyme “mansion” with “Wiscansin”—forever changing the trajectory of lyricism forever—but he’s also the guy at your airport gate patiently waiting to get on the flight. While he’s made a name for himself with an inimitable sound and party-starting tunes like “Bartender” and “I’m Sprung,” he tries to live as normal a life as possible. So if you’re wondering whether the guy in your boarding group is in fact two-time Grammy winner T-Pain, it just might be.
Even with a slew of hits—both his own and ones he’s blessed with a feature—the rappa ternt sanga hasn’t let fame get to his head. The night before sitting down with GQ, he was hanging out with a group of fans he met on the streaming platform Twitch. And lest you think he’s always sipping on expensive spirits from the top shelf, he’ll have you know that he’s a White Claw man. So much so, in fact, that he’s partnered with the seltzer on their Grab Life By The Claw campaign, which comes with the launch of a high-tech cooler and a White Claw delivery system.
Calling in from the middle of his Mansion in Wiscansin headline tour, T-Pain shared some stories about life as one of music’s most inescapable figures, his top hat era, and being huge in Japan.
T-Pain: The thing about me is, when I partner with somebody, I have to really like the product. Could you imagine not liking something and having to drink it all the time? I noticed in a lot of pictures of my shows, I have White Claw on me, just all the time. It’s already a product I like, and I think they noticed that. Hey, we always see you with White Claw. Is this a real thing, or are you trying to get our attention? This is a real thing!
I know this sounds weird as hell. But living the life of a drinker, and being able to control it more with White Claw, it’s actually helped me a lot. My fans on Twitch were talking about it last night. They said, “Man, ever since you started drinking White Claw, things have been…a lot better.” One of them was drinking the zero alcohol White Claw. I didn’t even know those existed! He lost a ton of weight. Now he’s super tiny, drinking zero alcohol White Claw. That’s awesome.
I’m not trying to do these partnerships where it’s like, Look what we got a rapper to do! I’m trying to be a part of the company. Having something that I actually like is very, very important. I’m always drinking White Claw—it’s a natural partnership.
Already on there, and it’s still there. The only problem I have on the road is people getting the wrong variety pack. I’ll drink any of them, but peach is the one. If you get me a peach, we’re going to have a good day. Strawberry is a close second.
It was 2006. Chris Brown was the headliner and I was the opening act. I just remember not knowing what the hell I was doing. I had a wardrobe change in the middle of my show, and I didn’t know where my wardrobe was! The one thing I remember was, on the first night, the wardrobe was backstage and I didn’t know. I ran all the way to my dressing room and tried to run back to the stage before the next song started. I didn’t make it because I didn’t know the process at all. That’s one of the core memories from my first tour. Ooh, that was rough as hell. I was doing a panic run back to my wardrobe. Other than that? Pretty smooth.
Well, I came out in a marching band uniform. I couldn’t perform in that the entire time. It was brutal.
I wasn’t doing the top hat yet. But I did have a marching band hat with the chinstrap and the feather on the top. It’s something I couldn't do a full show in. I had to do a wardrobe change.
I mean, I’m still figuring it out now. It’s ever-changing. It’s not something you actually figure out, it’s something that, as an artist, you always try to conform to the crowd with. Once you think you have it figured out, that’s when you get boring. If you keep doing the same show over and over again, what is life? What is the tour? It’s boring as hell. If you don’t have anything different from the last tour, why am I coming to the next one?
I have no idea where I am right now. [laughing]
I think it’d be more acceptable if it was drug-induced and shit like that. But, no, it’s not. I’ll be honest. I just can’t keep up! I wish this was because of drugs. There’s so much confusion and so many different things. I just keep saying yes to everything. Yeah, I can squeeze this in. Where am I at? Whose house is this?
I’m on tour right now, right this second. This is the middle of tour. It’s been fun. I’m having a pretty good time—fully independent, able to go out and do what I actually want to do, it’s not a label or management control thing. It’s all just me.
Yeah, I throw my own festival, Wiscansin Fest. That was a pretty cool thing. All my fans from Twitch got together and rented out an actual mansion in Wiscansin. I was there with all my fans, just chilling. It wasn’t like going to meet fans, it was like going to hang with friends! I do get to hang out with people that actually fuck with me.
Strangers in a physical sense, yeah. I met a lot of them for the first time. These are people that are always on my Twitch. They call themselves T-Painiacs. They’re fans that I see on Twitch all the time, but in a physical sense I have not met a lot of them. This was a big gathering of them.
It was a little bit before that, kind of the “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)” era. That’s when things started getting real bothersome. It wasn’t bothersome. It was just, What’s the big deal? I’m one of those people that’s like, Why do you think I’m important?
Even still to this day. I’m a person like you. If we’re both in the same airport, on the same flight, there’s nothing special about what I’m doing. It’s not a big deal that you get to see me. It’s become a thing that people know about me. They know how I feel about pictures and videos and stuff like that. I installed in everybody like, Chill the fuck out. We’re all doing this together. I’m only as important as you make me. I get it, and I appreciate it, but we’re all supposed to be chilling together. I just get to be on the other side of the camera more than most people.
Do a flip! [laughing]
Honestly, I have no idea what people expect. But the appreciation is there and the love is there. Obviously, I like that. But, trying to make me more important than anyone else that’s also waiting on their flight? That just doesn’t make sense to me.
Diapers, people’s faces. Obviously boobs. You gotta have boobs in there.
But yeah, people get me to sign their drinks. I don’t think I’ve signed anything more crazy than diapers. Diapers directly on the baby. Oh my god. All the time. People are always trying to be different, but it ends up being the same thing every time. It’s the craziest thing! You’re going to throw this away in like, two hours! You’re not going to keep this.
Oh, man. Chicago is definitely one. San Francisco. Those are my biggest supporters, and anywhere in New Zealand or Japan. It’s incredible. You go to Japan, and nobody speaks English, but they know every word to your song. A lot of them don’t even know what they’re saying, but they know the syllables. It’s insane, but it’s actually really cool. I can’t listen to a Japanese song and learn Japanese! I guess I’m not that disciplined.
Nope, they don’t know either. They have no fucking idea.
[laughing] Just wrong as hell.