T.I. sets 'Trouble Man' release date... and wants out of the rap game

T.I. "Like That"

T.I. is a troubled man indeed.

The rapper is preparing his long-awaited next album "Trouble Man," though admittedly isn't keen on staying in the hip-hop biz.

In an interview with Power 105's Breakfast Club, Tip told his hosts "Where the game is going to and what it has evolved into from a personality standpoint, it goes against who I am as a person. So I want out. I'm [still] in it because I love music and because I have obligations contractually."

T.I. -- real name Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr. -- said it's a problem of rappers' true identities. It's not so much that artists talk game that has no actions to back it up, but that hip-hop audiences seemingly no longer need the bark to match bite.

"There was at one time when this game was about speaking to the people who feel like you feel. Now, the people that I'm speaking to, they don't necessarily feel like I feel," he said. "In my day, if you were rapping about something you really wasn't living, that was a strike against you and you were held accountable," he continued. "Nowadays, nobody even expects you to live up to the things that you rap about... I can speak from a place of understanding and experience. These other people, they're imagining things."

"This is what everyone fails to realize: I want out."

"Trouble Man" is officially due now on Sept. 4; he has one track, "Love This Life," currently on the charts. T.I. released another new single, "Like That," this week (below).

What do you think? Does it sound like it comes from a place of experience?

Katie Hasty
Managing Editor

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After five years as a columnist and editor at Billboard, Katie Hasty joined HitFix in 2009 for music and film reporting out of New York. The Midwest native has worked as a writer, music promoter and in A&R since 1999 and performs with her band Numbers And Letters.