@TIP @vibemagazine
I hate to harp on the same subject but T.I. really is starting to get under my skin a little bit with all this belly aching.  Here’s a grown man whose obviously been in jail a few times for indulging himself on the drug dealing end of things.  He paid his “debt to society” and was still able to somehow parley that persona into a very successful rap career garnering him a hip hop wifey, millions of dollars, celebrity and truckloads of awards and record sales.  He messed up got sent back not once but now twice all on his own accord but in this busy schedule of fucking his own life up he manages to say its you and me whose to blame for his situation oh and he’s being persecuting in the same vain as Jesus and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Here’s an excerpt from his Vibe interview right before he went up.

I’ve heard you mention how the good that you’ve done is easily forgotten. Do you feel that you’ve been treated unfairly?
If I place my value in the way humans treat me, then maybe. But they’re human, man―they can’t help themselves. They do that to people they know personally. So how can I expect them to treat me, only knowing me through television? They did that to Jesus. They did that to Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali. They did it to every great person you could possibly think of. When it was all good, they was with them. When things got bad, then they was against them.

Am I to be lead to believe that T.I., Mr. Clifford Harris of all people should be regarded at the scapegoat martyr of the people as Jesus or even Dr. King?  Come on son. you’re killing me.  That’s laughable.  Oh and just in case you didn’t hear his sob story about growing up without a pops in his letter last week he make sure to reiterate it.  To bad you can’t hear the violin playing the background.

But in this case things didn’t “get bad.” It’s something you did.
Let me just say this: [he sits up on the couch] If you look at a guy who came up, no pops in the house, moms on welfare, food stamps; started selling dope when he was 12, 13 years old, came up handling guns, being in shoot-outs; started going to jail when he was 15. In all of this chaos and this mischief and lawlessness, the person who was just in jail for machine guns and silencers turns his life around. And now you want to crucify him ―for what? Three pills. I mean, of course it’s wrong and unacceptable and inexcusable. No problem. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s rather petty. It’s rather petty to hold someone’s feet to the fire for something so small when they have overcame things that were so big. All that could have been going wrong―if I was riding with more guns, or if I had gotten into a shoot-out and killed somebody, then I could see that. But just think about it. I’ve gotten it down to this much.

Crucify?  Dude you’re still living and when you get out you’ll still have a fat stack waiting for your with whips, a record career albeit diminished and wife who will continue to supply you with all the drugs you’ll need.  Did…Jesus…have all that? Hmmmm.  And yes Clifford.  THREE PILLS.  I know dudes that did life bids for the guns and pills you got bagged with.  Consider yourself blessed not a victim.  Just because you “overcame” so much doesn’t mean you get a pass for only carrying a fraction of what you used to.  What word do you think we live in.  Clearly rap has made this dude delusional.  Someone put some diamonds in his ears before he goes into anafilactic shock.  Jeeze.

So what got T.I. in the pill game that got him locked up anyway.

How did you get a drug habit?
I had a lot of work done to my teeth. Oral surgery, extractions, six, seven, eight root canals. Between January to February. As soon as I got out, I had a lot of stuff done. In the joint, you eat shit that is unhealthy for you. I had fillings that fell out and stuff that had to get dealt with. Of course for the pain they gave me oxycontin and hydrocodone. And, mind you, on October 13, 2007, I had cut off everything―weed, alcohol. Then I get these pills and I start taking them for the pain at first. And then I’m like, Wait―this shit makes me feel good. And it’s legal. After the pain went away, I kept taking it. I had like five, six prescriptions. So I had, like 80 pills. Everybody else might have a drink or smoke a blunt, I took a pain pill. Times when I had 18-, 20-hour days, I’d take a pain pill. And eventually I developed―I guess―the beginning stages of dependence.

That’s the first real ish he’s said in two weeks.  Pain killer dependence is real. Why because it always starts as something necessary, prescribed and then grabs a hold of you to the point where you can’t escape.  My question is why not just say that.  My name’s Clifford…I am a drug addict.  I have a problem.  Instead he’s trying to find every excuse in the book to try and pin the responsibility on someone else.  Then again isn’t that the character of an addict?  This is long from over.