It used to be an unspoken rule in hip hop that you HAD to be authentic. You couldn’t talk about anything if you hadn’t lived it. But now, it seems as if “image” is worth more than the truth. If you have the flash (cars, jewelry, the clothes and the hoes), nothing else matters.

Everyone seems to have sold kilos and no one was just a regular Joe Schmo before their rap careers took off, or before they got down with a team that co-signed that they were the next big thing in the game. It’s more acceptable nowadays to lie to everyone — your team, your fans and to yourself — than to actually stay true to yourself. Now, while rappers lying about their pasts is nothing new in hip hop (remember Vanilla Ice & his homemade thuggish bio?), it’s becoming more prevalent.
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T.I. – “Swagga Like Us” (feat. Jay-Z, Kanye, & Lil Wayne)
“You can go see Weezy for the wordplay, Jeezy for the bird play, Kanyeezy for diversity, and me for controversy.”

T.I.’s pulling out all the stops to ensure Paper Trail’s success. How the hell did he manage to fit all those egos on one song and still drop the strongest verse?

Any event that starts with “I’m still gettin’ manney, still doing my thang” cannot be taken seriously. But you should still watch this for the T.I. cameo.

Ludacris & T.I. – “I Wish You Would”

Produced By Toomp, “Wsh You Would” is taken from Luda’s Theater of the Mind, due in September. I remember when these two used to diss each other on songs. Now they jock each other on songs.

[Props to Enigmatik]

Here’s T.I.’s Paper Trail cover art in all its computerized glory. Sure, it’s been out there for some days now, but in line with my policy of not throwing up anything that could be remotely fake (at least not intentionally) I waited to verify it. So, go ahead and make it your new wallpaper if you want to.

Paper Trail has a new release date, by the way. It will now drop on September 9th, 2008.

Led by the Danjahandz-produced buzz single “No Matter What,”
Paper Trail is officially slated for release on August, 12, 2008.

[Thanks, Brian D.]