T-Pain became depressed after Usher said he 'f— up music' - Los Angeles Times
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T-Pain says he battled depression for years after Usher insulted his music

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T-Pain, left, recently detailed an alleged encounter with Usher that he said negatively affected his mental health.
(Christian Petersen, left; Pascal Le Seg / Getty Images)
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Singer and rapper T-Pain is opening up about his lengthy battle with depression, which began after Usher allegedly insulted his music.

In a brief clip from the new docuseries “This Is Pop,” out Tuesday on Netflix, T-Pain reflects on an alleged conversation with the “Yeah!” singer that he said negatively affected his mental health.

In the video, which has gone viral on social media, T-Pain says he was asleep on a first-class plane ride to Los Angeles for the 2013 BET Awards when a flight attendant woke him and informed him that Usher wanted to speak with him.

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“Usher was my friend. I really respect Usher,” the “Buy U a Drank” artist says in the video, adding that his contemporary “sounded real concerned.”

“He was like, ‘Man, I wanna tell you something, man. You kinda f— up music.’ I chuckled a little bit. It was a nervous chuckle, but I chuckled. I didn’t understand. I thought he was joking at first, but then he was like, ‘Nah, man. You really f— up music for real singers.’”

T-Pain would not have picked the monster costume if he’d known he was going to stick around.

April 4, 2019

T-Pain is known for heavily Auto-Tuning his vocals, producing a tinny and distorted sonic effect that has become popular across various genres of music.

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“I was like, ‘What did I do? I came out, and I used Auto-Tune.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, you f— it up,’” T-Pain repeats in the Netflix teaser.

“I’m like ... ‘But I used it. I didn’t tell everyone else to start using it.’ That is the very moment — and I don’t even think I realized this for a long time — that’s the very moment that started a four-year depression for me.”

The snippet from “This Is Pop,” which has amassed more than 3.9 million views on Twitter alone, prompted an outpouring of support for T-Pain from fans who hailed the “Bartender” hitmaker as a musical “pioneer” while slamming Usher as a “demon.”

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This post has been updated. See below for details.

June 10, 2014

“Usher put T-Pain into depression by saying autotune f— up music and then went and released ‘OMG’ a song full of autotune that went No.1,” tweeted one person. “This man a whole demon.”

“T-Pain said he didn’t realize for years that his depression started because of Usher’s comment,” wrote another. “That’s literally how mental disorders show up. It takes years to unravel feelings & find the trigger. Though when you find thee trigger, you find things run deeper. Be kind to people.”

A representative for Usher did not immediately respond Tuesday to The Times’ request for comment.

This isn’t the first time T-Pain has spoken candidly about feeling slighted by his fellow musicians. In the past, multiple artists — from Kanye West to Jay-Z — have criticized T-Pain’s signature sound, according to a 2014 New Yorker profile titled “The Sadness of T-Pain.”

“People are just terrible, man,” T-Pain told The Times in 2014. “I just don’t get it. I think I’ve said the phrase ‘Why would you do that to a person?’; I think I’ve said that phrase well over 2,000 times in the last year.

“There’s just so much crap that gets done to artists. Two-sided things. Oh, man, I wish I would have known how two-sided people are. I just wish I knew not to trust all the people that say that they’re your friends.”

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The complete first season of “This Is Pop” is now available to stream on Netflix. See more reactions to the Grammy winner’s revelation below.

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