T-Pain Says He Was Depressed For Years After Usher Told Him He “Fucked Up Music For Real Singers”
Tomorrow, Netflix is dropping a new eight-part series called This Is Pop. It features interviews with a whole array of superstars from throughout different years and definitions of pop music — ABBA, Shania Twain, Chuck D, Orville Peck, Backstreet Boys, and Blur are all represented, as are many other iconic names. Also included is a pretty sad story about Usher telling T-Pain he “fucked up music” and the fallout for T-Pain.
In a new preview clip featuring an interview with T-Pain, a story about him and Usher and on a plane comes up. T-Pain catches himself for a moment, exhales, turns to the side looking like he’s about to cry. He then remembers a time he was sitting in first class sitting on a flight to the 2013 BET Awards, when a flight attendant woke him and told him Usher wanted to speak to him in the back of the plane. That’s when Usher criticized T-Pain’s contribution to pop, claiming his popularization of Auto-Tune “fucked up music for real singers.” T-Pain then says he went into a long depression after that conversation. Here’s the story in full:
I got up and went back and was like “How’s everything going?” Quick small talk, no big deal. He was like “I want to tell you something, man.” I was like, “What’s good?” He sounded real concerned. He was like, “Man, you kinda fucked up music.” I didn’t understand. Usher was my friend. He was like, “Nah, man, you really fucked up music for real singers.” Literally at that point, I couldn’t listen. Is he right? Did I fuck this up? Did I fuck up music? That is the very moment — I don’t think I even realized this for a long time — that’s the very moment that started a four-year depression for me.
You can watch the clip itself below.