T.I. Announces New Album Plans, Talks Music Biz Challenges: “It’s More People Fighting For A Smaller Pie Now”

Grammy-winning rapper T.I. recently talked about his plans to release a tenth solo album and how much pressure he feels as a music veteran.

If things go his way, Tip’s upcoming The Dime Trap album will remind fans of his early pre-global fame days.

“I feel like, when you’ve done hits like “Whatever You Like” and “Dead and Gone,” when you do those mainstream kind of “Blurred Lines”-ish kind of records, you don’t go and try to top “Blurred Lines.” You just come to a whole new element, bring it back down and build the process back over again. I’m breaking it all down, back to the element of where my music first began to interest people, and build it all over again.” (Movie Web)

Check out what T.I. said about today’s music industry hustle on the next page…

T.I. also talked about how timing and scheduling plays a large role on his career.

“It’s less exposure and more competition. It’s more people fighting for a smaller pie now. I don’t mind, because my hand was already in it. You’ll be hard pressed to pull my hand out of there, but it’s almost like, when you have an amount of time you must invest in a project, time away from home, away from family, the amount of risky situations and environments one must frequent in order to maximize potential, once you really, really estimate these things, it’s like, ‘OK, where is my time better invested?” (Movie Web)

Earlier this year, Tip revealed his next album would be called Traps Open.

“Paperwork, it’s a trilogy. So the first installment, The Motion Picture, it was supposed to be cinematic. It was supposed to be nostalgic, it was supposed to kind of give, an application of, how can I say, the sounds of yesteryear mixed with the hip-hop of today. This next one is going to be unapologetically gangsta, it’s just straight trap music and it’s called Traps Open. [Any features?] Nah, not yet.” (Hip Hop Since 1987)

Last year, T.I. spoke on the importance of album sales compared to quality of music.

“Don’t get me wrong, everybody wants to do well in everything that they do, but at the same time you have to judge yourself based on a scale of the statistics of what’s considered normal or acceptable for today. Ultimately the fans receiving it and really being able to relate to the music and really appreciating it as much as we appreciated putting it together, that is more important to us at this point in time.” (Rap-Up)