T-Pain in his own voice
T-Pain made his divorce from Auto-Tune final during the first show of his so-called acoustic tour Wednesday, Oct. 4.
Or maybe it’s just a trial separation. Either way, the intimate performance at the Independent in San Francisco showed the kind of nerves and giddiness that mark the beginning of a new relationship. The Florida singer and rapper soaked in the moment at the outset and fought back tears at the end, repeatedly thanking the sold-out audience just for showing up.
“I don’t even have some drums on my stage, because this is supposed to be some chill s—,” he told the crowd, before singing a note. “I can’t even explain how nervous I am about the whole thing.”
The sound at the Independent show was sludgier than
his NPR Tiny Desk performance in 2014, the artist’s first high-profile emancipation from voice-altering gimmickry. T-Pain seemed at times Wednesday to be struggling to sing over the bass-heavy threepiece band consisting of two keyboards, a MIDI and a plugged-in bassist. (And if that qualifies as acoustic, then your Apple Watch is an analog timepiece.)
But the third song of his nearly two-hour set, the sparely arranged “Drowning Again,” showcased his earnest and soaring vocal abilities. It was followed by a mashup of his 2007 hit “Bartender” and a spirited cover of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September,” which led into his rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Remember the Time,” as he beatboxed between verses and drank from a “Game of Thrones” motif goblet filled with Hennessy cognac. During that lively moment, T-Pain even managed to segue into a crowd sing-along of the “Game of Thrones” theme song.
The 32-year-old rapper released five albums with a string of hits between 2005 and 2011, but gained a reputation as the most prolific user of the alien Auto-Tune vocal pitch-altering effect. He had scores of hits both on his own (“Buy U a Drank”) and with others (most memorably Flo Rida’s “Low”), before he was defined, then dismissed, then mocked because of AutoTune.
But the Tiny Desk concert in Washington, D.C., a true acoustic performance that featured just T-Pain’s voice and a keyboardist, garnered more than 10 million views and is still the most-watched concert in the Tiny Desk series’ history. It inspired his six-city acoustic tour, which he announced over the summer.
At a point when Coldplay’s performance at Levi’s Stadium on the same night was already 50 minutes past the stadium’s 10 p.m. curfew, T-Pain was still backstage. But by about 11 p.m., the solidly built singer bounded out in camouflage shorts and boots, a bandanna holding his hair up like an exploding firework. He played for an hour and a half, never taking off his sunglasses.
The stage was set up like the interior of a yacht, with cream-colored leather, a bar, several podiums to set down drinks, and (most inexplicably) a love seat with two women who made no musical contribution — training their phones on T-Pain as if he were a Pokémon they were trying to capture.
Lyrics that could only qualify as self-parody if delivered by 99.98 percent of the planet came off as sincere in the venue. “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)” was another intense highlight, delivered as if the audience were the artist’s priest, and “I like the way Mama get up on the table/I like the way she pours the honey in her navel” was his confession.
He ended the 11-song set by debuting a new track from his upcoming album, “Oblivion,” due later this year and his first since “Revolver” in 2011. He didn’t audibly offer a name for the song, which had a piano riff that suggested jazzier detours in the future.
There were no encores, but he didn’t need one. The last song stretched on for more than 15 minutes as TPain filled in two interludes with more gratitude, at one point equating himself with rock band Nickelback in the pantheon of music acts that have become cool to dismiss.
It was nearly 12:30 a.m. and many blearyeyed fans were heading to the exits, but T-Pain didn’t seem to notice.
“This S.F. crowd could not have gone any better,” he said. “You mother— packed this bitch out.”