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*Tip “T.I.” Harris is recruiting fresh new talent to join his Grand Hustle Team!
Set in the streets of Atlanta, his new reality series follows 16 entrepreneurs from all walks of life as they use the city to prove they have what it takes to out-hustle the rest.
In the end, T.I. will choose one person to be named King or Queen of the Hustle – landing a six-figure job working at one of his companies.
“The salary is really just a way for me to work them the way that I would work one of my normal executives guilt-free,” Harris said July 27 during the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills.
“And I think that’s where the actual concept of the show came from, a sincere need for more hands to be on deck as the business is expanding in so many different areas. And people tend to like to go home to their families. So they express the need for more help. And this young lady or young man will now have that opportunity.”
A lot of people don’t have the knack for hustling but T.I. wrote the book on the subject.
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“I think I always was self-motivated,” he told the room of journalists. “I think that me wanting to maintain a certain level of independence, even as a youngster. I started selling candy in fourth grade. So, I’d get $100, break it into five twenties and go get $100 worth of candy and $20 worth of candy and break it down to $100, and I did that 4th, 5th, 6th grade, and that’s how I got all my bike accessories and all of my little toys and stuff. I think those are the things that kind of stuck with me as I got older. Of course, you know, my industry changed a bit. I’m no longer selling candy.”
When it comes to disciplining his staff, Tip explained: “I don’t discipline people. In any area of executive work, we have to hold people accountable and show them where their error was, show them how they aren’t necessarily stepping up to the podium and handling business as you would expect them to.”
His style is not to drop F-bombs on the contestants a la Gordon Ramsey-style. Instead, T.I. prefers to “shock” in a way that resonates “so it’ll stick with them for their efforts into the next challenge and the next challenge,” he said. “I don’t want to frighten them and ostracize them. I really, more so than anything, want to inspire them, motivate them, and show them how much better I expect of them.”
T.I. noted during the panel that he’s “a real free-spirited kind of cool natured person. And in business, it’s difficult to maintain that level of cool and still pull the best out of people. So sometimes people expect you to be cool. If you step outside of that, then that kind of establishes a level of seriousness,” he explained.
“I think Atlanta, because it’s a tenacious energy in the air, as soon as you get out of the airport in Atlanta you kind of can feel people moving to accomplish goals and reach their dreams. So, you’re going to have to work a little harder.”
When asked if “The Grand Hustle” is “The Apprentice” meets “Making the Band,” T.I. stated “It’s a little different,” adding: “But we do have characters that are extremely ambitious. There is one in particular, he stretched the rest of the contestants pretty thin and pushed them to their limits. And that was interesting for me to see how he could pull emotional reactions out of the rest of the contestants and see how it affected them and their productivity. I’m an evil genius.”
Many artists including T.I. have been called to build their brand in areas other than music, such as dabbling in the fashion industry, producing for other artists and acting.
In 2006, Harris starred in his first film, “ATL,” which was loosely based on the rapper’s life growing up in Atlanta. He has also served as an executive producer for several projects other than his own and produced several recordings for artists such as Mariah Carey, Rick Ross, B.o.B, and Yung Joc. Tip said his “vision” for his brand “is to remain diverse and expansive.”
“It’s an amoeba of opportunities that exist. I think it started with music and music was the platform that allowed the opportunities for film. The film was the platform that allowed the opportunities for fashion. And then you get into television and real estate, and so on and so forth,” he explained during TCA. “And these opportunities continue to present themselves, our company’s infrastructure being able to execute properly on all these different facets is really what the vision for the brand is, to have several layers of successful strings of revenue from different areas of entertainment and business.”
When it comes to the music game, Harris said he learned early on that the most important part of the hustle is: “Work ethic.”
“You had to be willing to show up early, leave late, accept opportunities that other people passed up, and just not necessarily look so much to celebrate. Look to create other opportunities. While everybody else is celebrating, find a way to create the next celebration,” he said.
“I think another thing that that does is, it kind of dulls your senses to the point where you don’t really smell the roses as much as everyone else. While everybody else is in the locker room popping champagne, you’re watching the playbook. So I think that that’s a part of me that I uncovered when I stepped into the music business.”
When EURweb.com reporter Ny MaGee asked Tip if being the boss ever takes the joy out of being an artist, he replied: “Sometimes but it’s worth it.”
“The Grand Hustle” airs Thursday at 10.9c on BET.
