T.I. Switches His Style Up, "A Lot Of Times, I'm Taking Myself Out Of My Element"

Grammy-winning rapper T.I. recently opened up about his forthcoming new Trouble Man solo album and why he is going to uncharted grounds this time around.

According to Tip, he is going to take listeners back to his old days rather than continue rapping about his current lifestyle and habits.

"I always do a lot of recording, so I have around 45 songs right now. I'm diversifying the project, just recoding different types of music," T.I. told Billboard's The Juice of "Trouble Man." "A lot of times, I'm taking myself out of my element," Tip continued. "This is the first project where I'm talking about things that I've experienced before that I'm not necessarily experiencing now, 'cause I'm not doing a whole lot of partying. I do a little bit, but not a lot ... nothing like when I was in that life." (Billboard)

Last weekend, the "King of the South" announced his new LP's official title.

"I'm embracing it," T.I. tells me of the persona that is the title of his eighth studio album, "Trouble Man." A minute into the title track, before I could ask why, Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" comes through the speakers of Atlanta's Darp Studio Inc and we both nod our heads in understanding. As Marvin smoothly croons of personal struggles, T.I. smiles and nods his head yes. ... "I have this one record [titled] 'Pyro' that I'm proud of," T.I. told Billboard.com's The Juice. "'Pyro' is a straight party record. It's nostalgic of those crazy nights, early mornings [but] just turned up." "Pyro" will come after the release of T.I.'s two singles, "I'm Flexin'," featuring Big K.R.I.T. and "Hear Ye' Hear Ye'," feat. Pharrell Williams. (The Juice)

In October, Tip revealed being split over his two album titles.

"The first of two album titles I'm debating is Kill the King because in all that I've gone through I've observed how people respond to my circumstances, and I always wonder 'Why y'all coming at me like this?' But I thought, 'How do you expect them to act?'" he explains. "Life is a game of chess and the object is to kill the king. If you anoint yourself king, you have made yourself a target. The second one is self-explanatory - Trouble." Keen on reclaiming his Southern hip-hop crown, T.I. has little patience for skeptics who believe his star has dimmed. (Rolling Stone)

Recently, producer Cavie told SOHH about his involvement on Tip's comeback LP.

"I'm in the midst of working on my album right now. There's crazy features and eveything on it, but I've been taking my time to work on my album to make it a masterpiece and I'm taking a few songs and making mixtapes," Cavie told SOHH. "As a producer, I'm in the lab right now working on Cee-Lo's new album, Goodie Mob's new album, DMX's new album, T.I.'s new album and Macy Gray's new album. I'm in the lab cranking out some hits for people to jam to next year. ... X and T.I. are two different artists. DMX is up there with Eminem. No one's ever broke the recordshe's broke. T.I.'s a great artist and I'm excited for his comeback too. But X's new album is just gonna be a monster. We're working on getting this Eminem and X record together because it's going to be hip-hop history." (SOHH)