T.I.:Road to "Redemption"

If you aren't aware(which I don't care to chastise you if you aren't, no one really cares anyway), the southern rapper T.I., is awaiting a year long (actually 366 day) jail sentence due to illegal weapon charges.

Now, this has been stirring up quite a buzz in the Hip Hop community, for reasons which I don't quite understand. This isn't the first time a rapper's been sent to jail during his career. Hell, DMX has been in and out of jail multiple times during his, and he's in jail right now as well. Its not the end of the world. What's more, he had the audacity to start a new MTV show called "Road to Redemption." I don't know exactly what its about (I don't watch MTV, or TV in general for that matter), but I've been told T.I. brings in seven teenagers to try and show them that they can live a life without crime. Awww.... that's so sweet right??? Too bad more than half of his songs are promoting drugs, violence, and the like. Seems a little hypocritical if you ask me. You can't pretend to be two different people like that. If you listen to the song "What You Know" by T.I., the song that won the Academy Award for Best Solo Rap Performance a couple years ago, he explicitly discusses his cocaine dealings on the streets. So how can he in good conscience, try and preach a more pure life, without all of this crime, to those who listen to his music?

I don't know the man's intentions, but to me, this sounds like a petty attempt at some more publicity before TIP is sent behind bars for a year. Because I honestly don't buy what this show is trying to sell. So in the commercial breaks, after just watching T.I. lecture these youngsters on how they should live their lives, I get to see a music video of him riding in a stolen car puffing on a marijuana blunt? No, this all sounds like cheap, corporate, bulls#!@ to me. I'm sick of all this garbage that's being mercilessly shoved down my throat wherever I look. Here's a statement released by those whom visited T.I. during his trial period, He felt that he was undergoing a karmic reckoning, a time when he would have to balance the scales of his life and integrate who he was with who he is. We've never seen someone so introspective, so smart about how who he was back in the slums of Atlanta is affecting who he is now." I have never seen more fabricated corporate garbage in one sentence.

Whoever watched this show and liked it, or took it to heart, needs to rethink their life and learn to not accept anything they see on TV. Particularly mTV, this is not a "real" channel, nor a place to get good advice. Need proof? Go to the links on the left side of this page and click on the best page in the universe. Look for the guy's post(s) on mTV and the type of people who watch it. I think it speaks for itself.