T.I. Talks Retirement From Rap: "I Want Out"

Tip says contractual obligations keeping him in the biz.

Posted: 05/18/2012 05:02 PM EDT
T.I.

Though he still has at least one highly anticipated album in the chamber, T.I. is already planning his exit from the hip hop scene. In a new interview with Power 105.1's the Breakfast Club this morning, the King of the South explained his frustrations with the rap game and why he's ready to fade to black.

"This is what everyone fails to realize: I want out," he said. "Where the game is going to and what it has evolved into from a personality standpoint, it goes against who I am as a person. So I want out. I'm [still] in it because I love music and because I have obligations contractually."

T.I., who is currently recording his eighth studio album, Trouble Man, confessed that lately he's been feeling a growing disconnect with what he perceives as the modern hip hop audience.

"There was at one time when this game was about speaking to the people who feel like you feel," he said. "Now, the people that I'm speaking to, they don't necessarily feel like I feel." 

"In my day, if you were rapping about something you really wasn't living, that was a strike against you and you were held accountable," he continued. "Nowadays, nobody even expects you to live up to the things that you rap about."

Though he's no longer in the trap himself, Tip said that his own music still has the ring of authenticity.

"I can speak from a place of understanding and experience. These other people, they're imagining things."

Watch the full interview, in which he also discusses his reality show, T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle, and his burgeoning acting career below.

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