VOA常速英语2007年-T-Pain Dominates The Music World

By Larry London
Washington
31 December 2007
 

Hip-Hop artist T-Pain is only 22 years-old, and he has already produced more music than artists who've spent a lifetime in the entertainment field. He's just been nominated for five Grammy Awards. That's on top of the MTV Video and Vibe music awards he won previously¹. VOA's Larry London recently talked with T-Pain about his skyrocketing music career.

Hip-Hop artist T-Pain success is big and getting bigger. He describes himself, "I'm such a humble² person. A lot of people tell me I don't know how big (famous) I am."

 

For the past three years, T-Pain has written, performed and produced an impressive amount of award-winning music, not only for himself, but also for many other R&B artists. His music is in a genre³ that's hard to define.

Hip-Hop, T-Pain explains, "It really doesn't have a meaning. Hip-Hop is a feeling to me. Hip-Hop is a moment, a mode, that you can get into at any given moment."

Despite all his success, T-Pain didn't get much respect when he first arrived on the Hip-Hop scene.

He recalls, "They saw me, and they looked at me and they said, 'Aw, he can't be writing that kind of song', or 'He can't produce that', just because of the way I look. And when they figured out that I was somewhat of an intelligent person, (laughs) it just, it baffles people, you know what I'm saying? It just kind of makes me sad that people don't catch on until two years later, but, hey, as long as they catch on."

And many of those who caught on were the biggest names in the Hip-Hop culture, names like Kanye West, Chris Brown, Mario Wynans, and Michael Jackson; artists who wanted to collaborate⁴ with T-Pain on their projects.

 

"It was great just meeting Michael Jackson. Just them calling saying, 'Hey we got to push your studio time back because Michael Jackson wants to meet you.' Just that moment right there was the highlight of my life," T-Pain said.

But, he says, life was not so good growing up in a Florida city. That's where he came up with the name T-Pain. "The 'T' stands for Tallahassee, which is Tallahassee, Florida, which is where I'm from. The 'pain' stands for the struggle of trying to get outside of Tallahassee. People just hating on you, stepping on your toes (taking advantage of you), just trying to pull you to the bottom (disrespecting you), like it's so hard to get outside of Tallahassee, which causes pain, so 'Tallahassee-Pain.'"

Although he experienced some pain in his youth, his music has brought joy to thousands of his fans. His new album is called "Epiphany."

How he came to nameing the cd, he says, "I had an epiphany between my first and my second albums . . . just experiences I had as far as going overseas, losing a couple of friends due to violence or gang violence. Stuff like that just made me think about life in a different light and my situation in a different light. So it was just natural to have an epiphany."

T-Pain has been called a prodigy⁵, a man ahead of his time - names that he rejects and embarrass him. Whatever you call him, at 22, T-Pain has come a long way in a very short time - and unbelievably, an artist whose career may just now be taking off.

1 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

2 humble   

adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低

参考例句：

• In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
• Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。

3 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

4 collaborate   

vi.协作，合作；协调

参考例句：

• The work gets done more quickly when we collaborate.我们一旦合作，工作做起来就更快了。
• I would ask you to collaborate with us in this work.我们愿意请你们在这项工作中和我们合作。

5 prodigy   

n.惊人的事物，奇迹，神童，天才，预兆

参考例句：

• She was a child prodigy on the violin.她是神童小提琴手。
• He was always a Negro prodigy who played barbarously and wonderfully.他始终是一个黑人的奇才，这种奇才弹奏起来粗野而惊人。