Thursday, March 28, 2024

Tip Harris Conflicted on the Future Of His Stage Name: ‘T.I.’

ATLANTA, GA - JUNE 18: T.I. attends Birthday Bash ATL The Heavyweights of HIP HOP Live in Concert at Philips Arena on June 18, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Prince Williams/WireImage)
ATLANTA, GA – JUNE 18: T.I. attends Birthday Bash ATL The Heavyweights of HIP HOP Live in Concert at Philips Arena on June 18, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Prince Williams/WireImage)

*During a 2015 chat with Rap Radar Podcast, rapper T.I. said that the letters of his famous name are “two letters that mean absolutely nothing to me.”

Born Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., the Hip Hop star grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, as Tip, a name he has said friends and family called him more often than Clifford. Early on in his career, T.I. worked with LaFace Records, and when the roster was absorbed by Arista Records, executives advised he change his name because Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest was already on the label.

“[The record label] strongly suggested that I change my name, but I had nothing to change my name to,” Tip told Esquire in 2015. “I’d never been called anything else. I felt like, since it’s just a suggestion, maybe if I come up with nothing then, you know, things’ll stay as they are. Much to my dismay, I found out that that suggestion was more … ultimatum-ish.”

In a recent interview with The Huffington Post, Tip further explained the catalyst for the initial name change. “Well, I believe that early on in my career when I was kind of asked, or it was suggested that I should change my name, you know, it was very difficult to find something else to call myself short notice just for the purpose of rap,” said Tip. “Because my music was just an extension of me, so to have to create another label or name for myself was very difficult and I wasn’t very successful at it.”

READ RELATED STORY: Hundreds of Women Audition for T.I.’s New Atlanta Strip Club (Watch)

LaFace executive Kawan Prather was the one who suggested that T.I. drop the “P” from Tip. Prather told him that they weren’t going to be able to move forward until he changed the name.

“So I said, ‘Go ahead, put T.I. on there, no problem,’ and it just happened to have stuck,” Tip told HuffPost. “Now, I think just as many people know me as Tip as T.I.,” he said. “So, I guess I wanted to have people call me my actual name.”

It remains unclear if T.I. will release his upcoming album, “The Dime Trap,” under T.I. or Tip, but he acknowledges that at this point in his career, he’s grateful to have more say in his art.

“We made a conscious decision to have a lot more faith in the [label] operations of our art early on,” he said. “But right now, just to be able to [go by Tip] and have it be significant and have people still care about the music being released, it’s incredibly flattering. I’m humbled, I appreciate all the love.”

We Publish News 24/7. Don’t Miss A Story. Click HERE to SUBSCRIBE to Our Newsletter Now!

YOU MAY LIKE

SEARCH

- Advertisement -

TRENDING