T-Pain recently held a listening party for his mixtape, The Iron Way and addressed the controversy surrounding his use of unreleased Aaliyah vocals for his song, “Girlfriends.”
T-Pain has garnered backlash for using the late singer’s vocals and he addressed the controversy during his listening party.
T-Pain started off his response by explaining that he obtained the “Rock the Boat” singer’s vocals after he did a feature for her tribute album.
“First of all, let me just say that a lot of people are pissed off about that for some reason. I’m seeing a lot of people directly say, ‘He doesn’t deserve her vocals.’ So I’m trying to figure out what the fuck did I do. So what happened was they were doing Aaliyah X album and they came to me for a feature on the album,” he said about the Aaliyah collaboration. “They had a bunch of sessions and unused tracks from her. So instead of being a dick and charging the shit out of them, I was like, ‘Yo, just give me one of the sessions.’ And they were like, “Cool. We ain’t gotta pay, right?’ It was just like a swap. I did a song for her album and they gave me one for mine.”
But instead of clearing up the backlash, T-Pain ultimately made things worse when he said that Aaliyah’s fans over exaggerate her legacy and impact because of her untimely death.
He added, “People tend to–I don’t know, man. I’m not trying to discredit Aaliyah in any kind of way. But you know how sometimes people die–yeah. You know how somebody’s an asshole their whole life, but when you go to their funeral it’s like, ‘This guy was the greatest man ever.’ No, I’m just sayin’!”
T-Pain then went on to say that if Aaliyah were still alive, fans might have slammed her for trying to be Beyonce.
“If she was still alive, then everybody would’ve been like, ‘Oh! She tryna be Beyonce!’ if she were still alive right now. But now that she’s passed, it’s like, ‘Nobody could be her! Nobody could be her!’” he continued.
Naturally, Aaliyah’s fans are appalled by T-Pain’s comments and he is receiving even more criticism.
What are your thoughts on T-Pain’s comments? Sound off below!
