Crib Notes

T.I. has revealed the cover art for Paper Trail — his new album due Sept. 9 — and it’s actually, um, artistic.

The conceptual cover bears the rapper’s image designed from paper scraps.

“We didn’t want to just do a typical cover, especially for my sixth album,” T.I. told MTV News via email. “I wanted to try something a little more different. The illustration for Paper Trail pays an obvious homage to my rekindled affinity for writing my lyrics down as well as displays my commitment to keep my art slanted towards the abstract.”

He’s also leaked two new songs from Paper Trail. “Swing Your Rag” and “What Up” are decidedly more club/street-worthy tunes than his first single, “No Matter What” — which addresses his legal issues and mild-mannered beef with Bankhead representative Shawty Lo. Despite production from his long-time collaborator D.J. Toomp, the bluesy triumph over tragedy song hasn’t gained much traction on radio. (See video after the jump.)

But it’s nothing a club remix from DJ Klever couldn’t fix.
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Once the word gets out, T.I.’s fans will surely flock to Easter service as if it’s the Second Coming.

A federal magistrate judge ruled today that multi-platinum rapper Clifford “T.I.” Harris will be allowed to attend New Birth Missionary Baptist Church’s Easter service this Sunday, despite his ongoing house arrest status.

Harris, who still faces weapons charges after being arrested on the day of the BET Awards in Atlanta last October, will be allowed to leave his residence from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. to attend the service presided over by New Birth Bishop Eddie Long.

He will be accompanied at all times by a court-appointed monitor and one of his attorneys.

Today’s ruling proves that prosecutors may be softening their stance on the rapper. Back in November, T.I.’s lawyers rescinded their request to allow their client to host a Thanksgiving dinner at home with 95 potential guests after prosecutors accused the defendant of seeking special treatment.

New Birth, a south Dekalb County megachurch, typically holds its huge Easter service at the Georgia Dome, but it’s not clear whether or not the recent damage caused by last weekend’s tornado will prevent the congregation from doing so this year.

Wherever the service is held, it could be the first to attract ticket scalpers.

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Well, it’s the day after Christmas, and I hope you got all the presents you wanted. Certainly everyone got one nice surprise yesterday — a new video missive from T.I.

As the world knows, T.I.’s first public statements after his arrest came in the form of a video message posted Nov. 13 on Streetcred.com, an Atlanta-based multimedia and social-networking site he reportedly owns, according to an MTV.com story. In the new message, which was posted Monday, Dec. 24, he thanks his fans for their support as he stands by a massive Christmas tree. “Stay focused on what you got to do. Don’t worry about me, man. Find something else to worry about, Holmes. God got me covered.” He also talks about his kids, the new album Paper Trail – which he says is 30 percent done — and rumors surrounding his Grand Hustle family.

T.I. ends by saying, “Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Have a safe New Year’s, on behalf of the king himself and Grand Hustle. Keep it pimpin’.”

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It’s hard to believe the Aphilliates’ offices are still located at 147 Walker St. — the same place where Atlanta police arrested Tyree “DJ Drama” Simmons and Don Cannon last January on bootlegging charges.

“A lot of people were like, ‘You’re going to stay there? Don’t you feel like it’s negative energy?’” says DJ Drama, who takes a moment to talk before going on the air to host “Gangsta Grillz Radio,” the 8 p.m. Friday show he co-hosts with Cannon for Sirius satellite radio. The duo broadcasts the program from a studio room in the offices. “But it would only be negative energy if I felt as if everything turned out in a negative way. I’m the type of person where my glass is always half-full. This is our home.”

It’s the type of attitude that has sustained Drama throughout the year: When it rains lemons, make lemonade. After DJ Drama, widely known as the uncrowned king of mix CDs, was arrested, he pressed up T-shirts that read, “Free DJ Drama.” Hot 107.9 (WHTA-FM), the station that once hosted the Aphilliates’ “Gangsta Grillz Radio” program Saturdays at 8 p.m., temporarily took Drama off the air. Now Hot 107.9 features the program five nights a week: Monday through Thursday at 10 and the original Saturday time slot.

When police raided the offices, they seized the master copies for DJ Drama’s Atlantic Records debut, Gangsta Grillz: The Album. After DJ Drama re-recorded some tracks and commissioned new material, the album will finally drop Dec. 4. He talked about the album, his friend Tip “T.I.” Harris’ ongoing legal troubles (Drama is T.I.’s DJ), and why he calls mix CDs “the veins of hip-hop.”

CL: This is the same space that you had last time, right?

Drama: Same space. This is where they came. We’re still here.

CL: It actually looks like it’s cleaner, and there’s more stuff here than there was before.

Drama: They took everything, so we just had to rebuild. Basically, we went out, got new stuff, and went back to work. You know, we do our Sirius show from in here, so they had taken all our ISDN lines and everything. So we just had to put everything back together and get back to work. But I’m happy to say that we’re doing the show live here. We finished up the album and everything.

A lot of people were, like, “You’re going to stay there? Don’t you feel like it’s negative energy?” But it would only be negative energy if I felt as if everything turned out in a negative way. I’m the type of person where my glass is always half-full. This is our home. This is where we built a lot of things. So for me to feel like the energy wasn’t good in here, I mean, it is what we make it. It’s back to business.

(more…)

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On Wednesday T.I., who is currently under house arrest pending trial on gun charges, filed a motion requesting that he be allowed to have a Thanksgiving party at his house, according to AllHipHop.com.

The rapper also submitted a list of proposed visitors for the judge to approve, who must all undergo criminal background checks, as does any other visitor to see the chart-topping rapper.

T.I. is also forbidden from consuming alcohol even if the motion is granted. He must also pay for additional security guards to police the Thanksgiving Day celebration.

But by the following day, AllHipHop.com reported that T.I. withdrew his request:

T.I. dropped the request today (November 8), citing strong opposition from prosecutors handling the high profile case.

Prosecutors claimed that T.I. was seeking special treatment and said that since his release, he has submitted a list with 95 names, making it difficult for court officials to conduct background checks on each individual.

For more on T.I.’s legal issues, read Rodney Carmichael’s story in CL’s Nov.1 issue here.

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About a month before T.I. walked into a federal courtroom in Atlanta, he took the stand in a televised but slightly less publicized trial of a different sort. “Hip-Hop vs. America,” the taped town-hall panel that aired on BET, also featured rappers Nelly (of credit-card ass-swiping, “Tip Drill” fame) and Mike Jones. They defended commercial rap’s exploitative excess against critics such as Stanley Crouch, Nelson George, Farai Chideya and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

The YouTube video above is from part one of the second round of congressional hearings held in September on hip-hop. You can read more about that hearing — which featured rappers David Banner, Master P and intellectual Michael Eric Dyson — and some of the controversy surrounding the genre in this week’s music story: “It’s bigger than T.I.: Hip-hop is on trial and everybody’s snitching.”

The rest of the congressional hearing footage, below the jump, is must-see stuff, even though nothing much is likely to result from it. Curiously, footage of record company executives speaking before Congress in part one of the hearing is harder to find.

Click here to view BET’s three-part town-hall panel “Hip-Hop vs. America,” which aired in September.

Click here to view Oprah Winfrey’s “After Imus: The Hip-Hop Community Responds,” which aired in April.

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T.I. smiled and waved at cheering fans as he descended the steps of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and Courthouse on Friday, free on bond and placed under house arrest nearly two weeks after being arrested on federal gun charges.

“Well, I don’t have much to say,” T.I. told the media. “I just want to thank all of the fans for their continued prayers and support, and due to the severity of the situation I must decline comment and have you refer to my counsel. Thank you all.”

After giving Clifford “T.I.” Harris’ team of high-powered attorneys another week to iron out the terms of his proposed house arrest, U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Baverman released the rapper on a $3 million bond Friday afternoon.

He stressed, however, that if anything happened to any witnesses and/or informants associated with T.I.’s case, the rapper would be held liable.

“I don’t want to sound crass about it,” said the judge, “but in addition to being in the music and entertainment business you’re essentially in the insurance business now. If any harm is [befallen upon] the informant, the court will be looking to you. Do you understand that?”

T.I. then responded, “Yes, your honor.”

After the judge read and reread the lengthy conditions of the release, he placed him in the custody of Richard McMichael, CEO of Judicial Correction Services Inc., whom T.I.’s attorney’s employed to meet the judge’s strict GPS-monitored house arrest requirements.

“He will be able to work from his home in a studio there, he will be under supervision and it should be a time in which he deals with these issues in a very contemplative way,” said Ed Garland, one of the rapper’s attorneys.

His fans were out in full force Friday, with dozens waiting outside the courtroom and on the steps of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and Courthouse during the hearing. One mother and her teenage daughter wore matching ATL T-shirts, based on the movie T.I. starred in last year, and held posters of the rapper while yelling “Free T.I.” to drivers on Spring Street.

Another fan, Tamika Jones, cut pictures of T.I. out of a magazine and pasted them to her car to show support.

“He has received a lot of fan mail during his incarceration,” said the defendant’s attorney Dwight Thomas. “It shows that he is well-received, well-liked throughout this country and even outside of this country.”

When asked how it felt to be out on bond, T.I. immediately responded, “Great. Great. I look forward to getting this behind me and moving forward.”

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More than a decade after his unsolved murder, it seems Tupac still can’t rest in peace.

A bronze statue of the rapper was vandalized over the weekend in Stone Mountain at the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts (5616 Memorial Drive). DeKalb County police report that a cross was found around the neck of the statue; but Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation representatives state both a cross and a noose were found hanging on the statue.

In a press release issued today, the foundation links the incident to other recent hate crimes that have received national attention, such as the Jena 6 case:

The noose hung around the statue’s neck is an imitation of other cases recently reported in the media after a surge of hate crimes. The statue was also plastered with handbills of garbled rants that include references to 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina as well as vague threats against various record companies and rappers. The manner of the attack indicates it is the work of one or more individuals.

A male found inebriated at the site Monday morning has been arrested by DeKalb police in connection with the vandalism. The investigation continues. Ironically, the center was supposed to serve as the primary site for a Monday rally to bring attention to the amount of killings by police in DeKalb County last year.

In other Tupac news, Kevin Hackie, one of the rapper’s former bodyguards, publicly admitted at a recent L.A. screening of the new DVD documentary, Tupac: Assassination, that he was an undercover FBI agent during his employment as a bodyguard with Tupac’s label Death Row Records from 1992 to 1996.

The surprising revelation comes at an inauspicious time considering the federal charges rapper T.I. faces, in part, as a result of his bodyguard’s cooperation with federal ATF investigators.

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WHO SHOT YA? Sandra Rose (left, wearing glasses) sets up a photo with 112 lead singer, Q, at Ne-Yo’s Compound Entertainment post-BET Hip-Hop Awards breakfast party.

According to Atlanta celebrity photographer/blogger Sandra Rose, an Atlantic Records executive called her last Friday to suggest that it was her fault T.I. was not released after his bond hearing on Friday:

Last Friday, I received a call from an Atlantic records exec who informed me that T.I.’s lawyers were discussing amongst themselves the fact that the judge read my blog and was “very angry” by what he read. The exec indicated that the judge may have been angry enough to alter his decision to release T.I. on house arrest last Friday. The exec asked me to “be more sensitive” about what I wrote regarding T.I.

Read the full blog entry here.

Oddly, Rose has gone out of her way to defend T.I.’s alleged actions. In an entry dated Oct. 15, Rose wrote:

Many have questioned why T.I. had such an arsenal in the first place. The answer is simple: boys love guns. My brother, Ray, has been an avid gun collector since his teens so I have no problem believing that.

It’s definitely not the kind of reporting you’d expect from a traditional news organization. But serving celebrities also enables Rose to scoop legitimate reporters. Unnamed sources within T.I.’s camp regularly provide her with insider info, which could explain why the federal judge handling T.I.’s bond might be such an avid reader.

T.I.’s camp may have lost its good favor with Rose, however, as she goes on in her Oct. 22 post to state:

some people have a hard time accepting the fact that T.I. - not bloggers or the media - is responsible for his current situation.

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KID ROCK AT THE TABERNACLE (photo by Perry Julien)

In a Sunday story on Kid Rock’s weekend arrest, the AJC points out that both he and rapper T.I. record for Atlantic Records. Coincidence? Maybe.

It’s hard to compare a Waffle House fistfight to unregistered machine gun purchases in a Walgreens parking lot. But each artists did get into separate physical altercations (T.I. at a BET Awards-related event in L.A. earlier this year, and Kid Rock in the middle of the MTV Awards taping) near the time of their respective CD releases in 2007. And both debuted this year at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Here’s Fox 5 Atlanta’s coverage of the Kid getting bailed out of jail in DeKalb County on Sunday, courtesy TMZ.com.

And more photos from Kid Rock’s Tabernacle concert, courtesy Perry Julien, who says:

Sorry I didn’t get photos of the religious protesters outside the venue with their “Fornicators and Drunkards” signs, but I did get a shot of a fan that just may have been a drunkard propelling himself off the balcony. He survived, but they escorted him out to the street, presumably into the hands of the religious protesters.

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