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ATLANTA — The lore of T.I. continued to grow in the last few days. On Saturday night,
he had all of Atlanta talking about his dramatic stage performance during Hot 107.9's annual monster-mash concert, the Birthday
Bash 9. He shocked cheering fans at the HiFi Buys Amphitheatre who thought he was in jail, and later added
another surprise — he ignited a lyrical beef with fellow third-coast superstar, Houston's Lil' Flip.
The day
before the concert, T.I. made national headlines and he didn't have to step one foot outside of jail — a female inmate
at the Fulton County, Georgia, correctional facility escaped on Thursday while he was filming a small production in the same
jail. Although officials say that the jailbreak is not connected to T.I., spokespeople for the prison have publicly denied
that T.I.'s shoot was sanctioned and are investigating. The rapper, although not saying much, says he did no wrong.
"I
ain't at liberty to speak on that," T.I. said on Saturday about the incident at Fulton County Jail. "Let's just say I ain't
broke no laws, ain't no legal repercussions coming my way. I ain't done nothing wrong."
These days T.I. is working
on "the buddy system" in full accordance with the law. He refuses to elaborate on the exact terms of his work-release program,
but he does say he'll be free of his obligations by the end of the summer.
On March 30, T.I. turned himself in to authorities
because of charges of parole violation. Despite going into lockdown at the height of his career while his biggest record ever,
"Rubber Band Man," was wreaking havoc, the Bankhead, Georgia, native says he was willing to accept his judgment and was ready
for his life to progress.
"I knew it wasn't going to be a lengthy period of time," he said on Friday at Atlanta's Patchwork
studios about going to jail earlier this spring. "I knew it was just a small situation that had to be taken care of. Some
dirt that needed to be swept under the rug and something that I just needed to handle so I could move forward and get on with
my life."
When news first broke about T.I. being in prison, reports said that he would be doing a possible three years
(see " 'Rubber Band Man' Rapper T.I. Gets Three Years In Prison"). This had some of his detractors celebrating his downfall. One MC in particular T.I. has chosen to single out is Lil' Flip,
who, along with T.I., has been heralded as one of the forerunners of the new generation of Southern MCs.
"Basically
the origins of this ain't beef, it's filet mignon to me," T.I. said on his tour bus on the way to the Birthday Bash concert.
"He poses no threat to my health. Anytime he wants to see me, I have an open invitation. When I was gone, he made some comments.
He saw fit to take shots at me while I was down. At his shows in Atlanta, he would ask people who was the king of the South.
When my name was brought up — rightfully so — he said, 'OK, well tell T.I. I said game over.' "
Lil' Flip
said T.I.'s allegations are coming from nowhere. He denied ever dissing T.I. publicly or in the studio and said the most he's
said about T.I. was in a freestyle line: "I ride 24s like T.I."
"You know me, dawg. My career has been built off of
straight rhyming," Flip said Monday (June 21). He even chuckled that T.I. would bring out pictures of him dressed in a leprechaun
outfit, bragging, "I got $10 a disc for [my Leprechaun album.]"
The freestyle king said the only king of the
South is Scarface and that T.I.'s dis was just for attention.
"I ain't have to dis nobody to get where I'm at," Flip
continued. "But if it come to me, I'mma deal with it accordingly. He just got out of jail, so I guess he's been watching too
much 'Oz.' He's pumped up."
T.I. said he heard about Flip's alleged comments from several sources and even has a recording
of the remarks.
"I got you on tape," T.I. continued on the bus, holding up an old picture of Flip dressed in a leprechaun
outfit. The photo was blown up and placed on several poster boards that read "Game Over???" which T.I.'s crew was holding.
"You's a sucka, man! You sweet on the inside and even sweeter on the outside. I am not letting up on your ass, boy! You shouldn't
have tried me, man. I gotta shut you down, pimp! You have been faking for entirely too long. The game over? Yes, the game
is over ... For you, that is!" Upon his bus' arrival at the amphitheater, T.I.'s mood was on the upswing as Lil Scrappy, 8Ball
and MJG, Kanye West, Killer Mike and Lil Jon all came up to show him love. After barely five minutes backstage, T.I., dressed
in an orange jail suit, was told it was showtime.
"They say I've been gone for a long time," he told the cheering crowd.
"Y'all welcoming me back? I'mma welcome y'all back to the trap," he said and started freestyling over Mase's beat for "Welcome
Back."
"Everybody thought I was locked up and would miss the Birthday Bash," he told the crowd after he rapped. "Are
y'all crazy? Ain't no jail can hold me, n---a!"
T.I. kept the crowd into his energized set with a performance of his
classic "Dope Boyz," and he even brought it up to date with his guest verse from Memphis Bleek's "Round Here."
Then
the bomb dropped.
He was given word that Lil' Flip, who was also on the bill but missed his plane and arrived late,
was finally in the building. He challenged Flip to come out on the stage and tell him to his face who the king of the South
was, then proceeded with another freestyle. (Flip's manager said that the security and radio-station personnel did not allow
the freestyle king to take T.I. up on his offer.)
"Pu--- n---a I'm the leader of the troops, you just following suit,"
T.I. rapped while the crowd yelled "ooh" like kids in the school yard overhearing a snap session. "What kind of n---a take
a picture in a leprechaun suit with a lollypop chain and some leprechaun boots?/ ... Being lame is a curse you can never undo."
When
T.I. tried to segue into his next record, "Look What I Got," his mic and music were abruptly turned off. Amidst the chaos,
the fans started booing and some people even started chanting, "F--- Flip!"
A voice came over the PA system alerting
everyone that the Birthday Bash was over. T.I. was prepared to perform several more selections, including "Rubber Band Man"
and a couple of records from his upcoming LP, Urban Legend.
Oddly enough, the fiery lyricist didn't have any
hard feelings and chalked up his silencing to the show running overtime.
"That's what happens when you're the last
one to go on," he said as he left the stage.
This report is from MTV News.
In Hollywood, Warwick Davis dressed up in all green and showed us in his cult-classic
"Leprechaun" movies that the gold-chasing shorties had a lovable side as well as an ugly side. In hip-hop, it's no different.
"You know me, I'm the leprechaun," Lil' Flip said late Monday evening, responding to a hailstorm of disses
T.I. spewed at him over the weekend in Atlanta (see "T.I. Starts 'Filet Mignon' Beef With Lil' Flip At Birthday Bash"). "If you cool with the leprechaun, you get good stuff. If you make a leprechaun mad, you gonna have to feel the wrath." The
usually mild-mannered Flip was gearing up to show fans another side of himself later on in the night at a show in his hometown
of Houston. He was going to lyrically respond to what he says was unprovoked rhyming insults from the Rubber Band Man. "That's
how he came at me, onstage, so I'mma come at him the same way. It's really crazy, but if you come at me, I'mma finish it,"
Flip said. "I don't start beef, but I know how to end it. I don't play by the rules, but I know how to bend it." At
Saturday night's ATL concert Birthday Bash 9, T.I. dissed Flip onstage because he said he has a tape of Flip taking shots
at him at another concert earlier in the year. Allegedly, Flip told the crowd to tell T.I. "game over" and Flip segued into
his hit single by the same name. Flip categorically denies these charges and says that shortly before T.I. turned himself
in to police in March, the two did a photo shoot together for a Source magazine cover (that cover was eventually scrapped).
"He was all at the photo shoot like, 'Flip, did you do the 'Game Over' remix? I wanna get on there," the Houston native
recalled. "T.I. was at my trailer at the photo shoot. So if he had a problem with me, he should have said it then." Flip
said he had someone from his camp reach out to T.I. recently because he heard that a dis song might be on the horizon, but
he was told nothing was going to happen. The H-Town MC was surprised when he arrived at Birthday Bash 9 and heard T.I. getting
at him onstage. "What happened was that I was trying to get to Atlanta," Flip recalled. "They delayed our plane, so
we didn't get to the [venue] till like 11:20. Somebody came back like, 'Hey, man, he's talking bad about you.' Right after
he did that, they stopped his music in the middle of the show. Right after that, the [radio station] people was like, 'Y'all
gotta go.' I was gonna try to go out there on the stage. They told me I couldn't go out there. I had to go." If it
were up to Flip, he would just concentrate on making hit records. He has a new single and new album coming out with his group
the Clover Gs. One of the members happens to be video vixen/ King magazine cover girl Gloria Velez. "We got
Gloria, she's doing some stuff out there too, man," Flip said. "I got this little group thing and we thought it would be best
to put a girl in the group. You know we always talking about pimpin', but it ain't nothing like when you got a song with a
point of view from a man and a woman. I just got her on some tracks to spice it up a little bit. "She can rap," Flip
continued. "She likes rapping fast. She can spit. She writes her own sh--. Like it takes me 15 minutes to write, it takes
her 15 minutes to go write her sh-- and we out." In his new video for "Sunshine," Flip has his mind on another woman,
his baby boo. "Basically the song is called 'Sunshine,' the video is showing a day in the life of Flip," he said. "Girls
are throwing theirselves at me, but if you got a good chick at home, all these obstacles in front of you, you can overcome
them. All the girls that give their number, instead of calling them, I throw them away." This
report is from MTV News.
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