Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.
As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatles’ songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.
So with that, let’s get started
Faheem Rasheed Najm was born on September 30, 1985 in Tallahassee, Florida. The name “T-Pain” is short for “Tallahassee Pain”, and was chosen because of the hardships he experienced while living there. At three years old he got his first taste of the music business when a friend of the family, who was a producer allowed him to spend time and “twist the knobs” at his recording studio. At age ten, Najm turned his bedroom into a music studio, using a keyboard, a beat machine and a four-track recorder. When he was 19 he remixed Akon’s hit song, Locked Up. which managed to get him discovered by the man himself. Akon immediately offered him a deal to his label, Konvict Muzik. While T-Pain was offered other record deals, with the highest bidding being US$900,000, Akon promised the young artist fruitful and lucrative future in the industry, so he took it. In December 2005 he released his debut album, Rappa Ternt Sanga. As a kid, I never knew that the album was just pronounced “Rapper Turned Singer” and I always thought it was just some gibberish that I’m not cultured enough to know anything about. The album spawned a top five (I’m In Luv Wit a Stripper) and a top ten hit (I’m Sprung). He followed this up in June 2007 with Epiphany which was met with critical acclaim. With it, T-Pain got his first number one hit (Buy U A Drank) and also notched another top five hit (Bartender). While promoting this album, T-Pain was featured on every song under the song during this time, at one point being on 6 of the top 10 songs on the Billboard charts. In 2007 he was featured on some timeless classics. He notched two more number one hits as a featured artist (Low, Kiss Kiss). He was also featured on four top ten hits (Cyclone with Baby Bash, Good Life with Kanye West, Shawty with Plies). He notched top 20 hits with a number of hits as well. These include: I’m a Flirt Remix with a child predator, U & Dat with E-40, I’m so Hood with DJ Khaled, Outta My System with Bow Wow, and Baby Don’t Go with Fabulous. He also won a Grammy for his work on Kanye West’s Good Life. His third album, Thr33 Ringz was released amid of this absolute heater he was on in November 2008. It had a top 10 hit (Can’t Believe It), and that was pretty much it. The real art of T-Pain during this time was just hammering out features. He was featured on a couple of top ten hits (Shawty Get Loose with Lil Mama, Got Money with Lil Wayne) and a number of top 20 songs (The Boss with Rick Ross, She Got It with 2 Pistols, One More Drink with Ludacris). In 2009 he notched another top 5 hit (Blame It with Jaime Foxx) as well as releasing a collaboration mixtape with Lil Wayne. In 2010 he had a top -5 hit for his work with the garbage song that was We Are the World 25 another top ten (Hey Baby Drop It To the Floor with Pitbull) and a top 20 hit (All I Do is Win with DJ Khaled). In 2011 he got back to working on his own albums releasing Revolver in December. The album had a top 10 hit (5 o’ Clock) and a top thirty song (I know I never mention top 30 songs but I really enjoy Best Love Song with Chris Brown so I want it to get recognized). As hard is it is to believe, 2011 was the last time T-Pain hit the charts, and that’s an absolute travesty. Despite not charting for the better part of the decade, you can say his peak comparable to anyone, truly a magical run.
Toughest Omission: Best Love Song: I wish this charted higher, just a fun song all around. Chris Brown and T-Pain always bring the heat when they collaborate.
5. Can’t Believe It (ft. Lil Wayne): I was originally going to omit this song because in my opinion, Lil Wayne’s verse ruins this song. Lil Wayne has had some real stinkers for verses and I have no problem putting this one up there with some of his worst verses. The more I thought about it though, is it really fair to punish T-Pain for a verse that wasn’t even his? I don’t think so, plus you can’t rhyme mansion with Wisconsin and not have it be a top 5 song in your catalog.
4. I’m in Luv Wit a Stripper: Believe it or not 90% of this song is NOT auto tuned. The hook is the only thing auto tuned. But because you knew it was T-Pain you probably imagined it all in autotune. And that’s the best example of implicit thinking.
3. I’m Sprung: This was the song that started it all and it aged like fine wine. I feel the need to comment on this music video. This video shows T-Pain without sunglasses, but at one point in the video he puts them on and has still not taken them off.
2. Bartender (ft. Akon): One of the smoothest R&B songs ever, this was released at a time where if you didn’t have T-Pain or Akon on your song it wasn’t going mainstream. This song has both of them. T-Pain gets memed for saying he could buy you a mansion in Wisconsin, but the hook of “She made us drinks to drink, we drunk them, got drunk,” deserves some recognition as well. Edgar Allen Poe couldn’t write something this good.
1. Buy U a Drank (ft. Yung Joc) : Shout out to Allie for letting me have my first grinding experience to this song. Little did I know that it would be all down hill from here but at least I’ll always have this moment. I honestly think this is a top 5 song of the 2000s.
You already know I’m going to rank the best T-Pain features so I’m not even going to dance around it and just get right into those rankings.
Toughest Omission: Hey Baby (Drop it to the Floor)– I love this song a lot. This would be a top 5 feature on anyone else’s list, and that just shows how deep T-Pain’s catalog is.
5. Kiss Kiss- Chris Brown ft T-Pain: I talked about this song a lot when I did Chris Brown’s Music Monday, so I won’t repeat myself. Song is a hit.
4. Low– Flo Rida ft T-Pain: Please read above excerpt and replace Chris Brown with Flo Rida.
3. Blame It- Jaime Foxx ft T-Pain: This song was single handily responsible for every 16 year old kid making a fool of themselves after one shot of Smirnoff and just not having any accountability for their actions.
2. Good Life- Kanye West ft. T-Pain: The PYT sample on this song will always be stuff of legends, just an all time feel good song. There aren’t a lot things that allow me to feel happiness but this song is one of them.
1. Got Money- Lil Wayne ft T-Pain: You got peak Lil Wayne and peak T-Pain on the same song it is guaranteed to be an absolute hit. Song is a banger, there is no sugar coating it.
T-Pain is an industry legend and I will die on that hill. His body of work the soundtrack of my adolescence. His features alone are an elite catalog. His use of autotune has changed the landscape of music. It’s a shame he doesn’t seem to get the credit he deserves. He has the fifth most top 15 songs ever and is somehow very underrated.
Your Turn
If you had a blog and were to rank every T-Pain song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album |
| I’m Sprung | 2005 | 8 | Rappa Ternt Sanga |
| I’m ‘n Luv (Wit a Stripper) (ft. Mike Jones) | 2005 | 5 | Rappa Ternt Sanga |
| Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’) (ft. Yung Joc) | 2007 | 1 | Epiphany |
| Bartender (ft. Akon) | 2007 | 5 | Epiphany |
| Can’t Believe It (ft. Lil Wayne) | 2008 | 7 | Thr33 Ringz |
| 5 O’Clock (ft. Wiz Khalifa & Lily Allen) | 2011 | 10 | Revolver |
Your Turn
If you had a blog and were to rank every T-Pain FEATURE that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions |
| U and Dat (with E-40) | 2006 | 13 |
| Outta My System (with Bow Wow) | 2007 | 20 |
| I’m a Flirt (with R. Kelly) | 2007 | 12 |
| I’m So Hood (with DJ Khaled) | 2007 | 19 |
| Shawty (with Plies) | 2007 | 9 |
| Cyclone (with Baby Bash) | 2007 | 7 |
| Kiss Kiss (with Chris Brown) | 2007 | 1 |
| Good Life (with Kanye West) | 2007 | 7 |
| Low (with Flo-Rida) | 2007 | 1 |
| Shawty Get Loose (with Lil MAma and Chris Brown) | 2008 | 10 |
| The Boss (with Rick Ross) | 2008 | 17 |
| Got Money (with Lil Wayne) | 2008 | 10 |
| Blame It (with Jaime Foxx) | 2009 | 2 |
| Hey Baby (Drop it to the Floor) (with Pitbull | 2010 | 7 |
Vin'sane Thoughts 