T-Pain is the real headliner of Coachella

A top-tier creative and lifelong career to learn from

T-Pain, Faheem Rashad Najm, from Tallahassee, Florida, is one of my favorite artists. He sits at the intersection of hip-hop, entrepreneurship, and soul. I respect the way he is true to himself while crossing cultural boundaries and genres. He loves his wife of twenty years, Amber, is a father of three, and very open about his financial ups and downs over the years ($40M to zero and back up again). Besides his own body of work, his collaborations are chart toppers, from Kanye (remember Good Life? that’s T-Pain), Akon, DJ Khaled (All I Do is Win), Jamie Foxx, Flo Rida, Pitbull, Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Chris Brown (remember lovey dovey, kiss kiss?). T-Pain has sold over 50M singles and started his own record label, Nappy Boy Entertainment in 2006.

He is forever going viral on the internet, saying something honest and hilarious, covering our favorite songs, singing Montell as the Monster on the Masked Singer, or most recently, because fans were baffled at his tiny stage at Coachella. T-Pain packed the house, of course… so, let’s hope Coachella can do better next year because we are all BIG FANS.

@ellahalikasbest set of coachella @T-Pain

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I’ve got a feeling most of the After Hours audience is not into T-Pain, especially if you discovered me through a spiritual medium, but I want us to learn from his creative life. And personally, while I don’t always know how to integrate the many sides of myself on the internet. (I love Jesus but I cuss a little.) Hip hop and soul live in my eardrums. Trina and Trick Daddy, Fred Hammond and Hezekiah Walker, Bizzy Bone and Biggie, Jazmine Sullivan and Marc Broussard, Donny Hathaway and Chris Stapleton, Dolly and Reba. It’s how I was raised — singing Xscape in the back of the choir room, making beats at basketball games with our hands and feet, crooning Martina and Mariah in my basement.

As creators and humans, we are not a niche or a brand. We are complex and curious, surprising and brave. We are forever evolving in our humanity and in our craft. T-Pain is an exemplar in being himself and avoiding a box. His creative work speaks to the times without chasing trends so his art has gone the distance.

“Those who get stuck doing the same things for too long are bound to get left behind the strong who press on and re-invent themselves.” T-Pain

So what can we learn from an artist and writer as exceptional as this?

#1 Make things you like.

T-Pain said, “I don't know if a song is going to be a hit or it's going to flop. I never know. I just do the music and if people like it, they like it.” This reminds me of Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act, where he encourages artists not to create to please people or stay on trend but to make things they enjoy. Get to the truest version of yourself and share that with the world. Since I’m Sprung, you can spot a T-Pain song or collaboration a mile away. His cadence, style, and vocals are completely his. I think about writers like Anne Lamott or Toni Morrison, filmmakers like Wes Anderson or Jordan Peele, influencers like Tabitha Brown or The Birds Papaya (Sarah Landry), chefs like Roy Choi or Alison Roman — the best thing about these folks is that they are fully themselves, sharing what they like and love, creating for the sheer love of it… And we love them for it. What if you did the same? Be brave enough to follow your intuition and reduce (or eliminate) the cacophony of voices you’re trying to please or impress.

#2 Ride the waves.

When it comes to money, T-Pain is the realest, and since no one likes talking about money (especially to women), I love him for it. He said, “My first car was an '84 Ford Taurus. It caught on fire from me trying to change the fuel pump, so that wasn't good at all. Dried leaves on the ground while I was trying to change the fuel pump. Don't do that. Do it on concrete.” (Broke people life hacks! Love!) In several interviews, as I hinted at earlier, T-Pain shares his journey with wealth. Millions down to zero dollars and back up again. At one point, he was borrowing money to take care of his kids and gives credit to his wife, Amber, for encouraging him not to quit when he wanted to give up.

The creative life is filled with ups and downs, highs and lows (I’ll share how to manage that in a few weeks). I remember getting an unbelievable two-book deal. My platform was TINY, my email list less than 500, and I was still able to quit my job and write full time after writing as a side hustle for almost twenty years. Every Tuesday, I’d take the 2 train and walk to the main library in Manhattan, settle down in the Catalog Room and string sentences together until I hit 50K words. And I remember in 2020, living undiagnosed with an autoimmune disease, three babies in tow, editing my second book with a baby on my boob, thinking how could I ever, ever do this again? Losing my speaking income that year was a massive hit — my calendar was full of international trips, conference bookings twice a month, and suddenly, because of COVID, it was gone. And in that quiet space, I realized the change was most welcome. I spoke with friends and colleagues about money, about sustainability, about the future of creative work and made decisions accordingly. There are books and dreams in my heart and just like T-Pain, I’ll ride the waves of “a long obedience in the same direction.” I hope you will, too.

#3 Keep it weird.

“Kanye is the weirdest... He is the weirdest person I know other than me. I've told him that before.” I don’t know when T-Pain said this but it turned out to be true. Don’t be afraid to be weird. Look at T-Pain vibing in that Coachella video. He does not care what you think about him - you saw that side jump? He’s usually doing something unexpected, like a covers album because Earth found out he could blow and he gave the people what they wanted! High-key, everybody’s weird, but we usually reserve that for our nearest and dearest. (That’s good, most of the time — for example, we didn’t want to see Kanye running around in a mask with his new chick in yellow tights — that is a level of “inside the house weird.”) T-Pain teaches us that letting some of that weird out in our creative work and craft is critical to connecting with people. Keep it weird, cause everybody’s weird, and weird is good.

As always, I’m grateful you’re here. Thank you for financially supporting this work — it means so much to me. Happy creating and holler at me if I can help you in any way.

Lots of love,

Ashley