As God is my witness: "I Am T-Pain"

-->Jay-Z, aka Sean Carter, aka Jigga, often refers to himself as "Hova," short for J-Hova, or Jehovah, the “God of rap,” get it?

If you’re a little confused don’t worry, that’s what rappers do, they make up tons of nicknames that illustrate the fact that they’re way more badass than the next badass. Personally, I used to have like 5 “monikers” myself (that’s police-speak for nicknames), when I was busy tagging on buses in the late 90’s and battling MC’s at house parties. For the record, that was also when malt liquor 40's tasted, to me, like Amstel Light. In fact, if I had one gulp of King Cobra right now I’d probably throw up. And don’t even get me started on Old English. That shit tastes like nickels.

But, back to the Jigga-man, and his God title. If you are offended by this blasphemy, please try not to blame it all on "Hova," as it’s more of a “rap thing,” that shouldn’t be interpreted literally. Plus, he is definitely not the first to hold this self proclaimed title of divinity.

In any case, the chosen one recently took it upon himself to anoint, you guessed it, himself, as the grim reaper of rap, releasing the first single from his new ‘Blueprint’ album entitled, “Death of Autotune.”

Auto-tune, the ‘computer love gone-wild’ vocal effect made famous by crooner T-Pain, digitally adjusts the pitch of ones voice, helping to disguise the shortcomings of the vocalist with computery sounding melodies. The frequent overuse of this tool by artists like T-Pain, Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Britney Spears, and countless others, has noticeably watered down and already diluted industry. And it’s quite apparent from the lyrics on "Death of Autotune" that "Hova" felt the need to address the situation:

“This is anti-Autotune, death of the ring-tone/ this ain't for I-tunes, this ain't for sing-a-longs."

"You rappers singing too much/ get back to rap you T-painin’ too much.”

Unfortunately, the crucifixion of Auto-tune has only led to Easter!

Enter: T-Pain's new I-phone Application, "I Am T-Pain" – created by SMULE, a sort of software design firm that develops “Apps” for the I-phone. Basically, a bunch of really hip nerds that either went to Stanford or some other smart school, whose idea of a Friday night on the town is probably cruising University Avenue in Palo Alto with a Jamba Juice. “Who’s up for some Pizza My Heart?”

Anyhow, it appears that SMULE, in combination with T-Pain himself, may have one-upped the Jigga-man, and forever cemented Auto-tune in the annals of music history as the go-to Karaoke device of the future! Yes, the “I AM T-Pain” I-phone app actually allows you to be T-Pain and Auto-CROON from your very own phone. So, scary, yet amazing. (sample the I-Phone app here at your own risk)

Admittedly, I'm one of the biggest anti Auto-tune, commercial radio haters on the planet. I mean, what’s worse for the youth of America than to raise our kids on club music. I get it if you’re an adult, and you want to shake your ass to some mindless shit, get fucked up and forget about your day job. That’s completely understandable. In fact, I promote and produce events such as those for a living, and I feel like its sort of a community service. But, if your brain is always in the club and all you do is listen to club music, the kind the play on the radio 24/7, then you are constantly being dumb down.

So, what’s worse than millions of kids listening to T-Pain 365 days a year? Yep, millions of kids actually becoming him. A Red Army of Auto-tune soldiers hell bent on the destruction of music as we know it, led by the Minstrel-man himself…Oh, the horror!

Then again, not so fast Nate (that's me)! Maybe this is all part of God’s plan? Err, I mean Jay-Z’s!?!

Perhaps taking away the uniqueness of this devilish device known as Auto-tune will only trivialize it even further, thus rendering it impotent far more permanently than “Hova” ever could have imagined. Indeed, it seems that this might have all been part of T-Pain’s grand plan as well, as he has been working hard to trivialize his own persona for a while now. I definitely can’t see Jay-Z doing the “I’m On A Boat” remix, rocking a “BIG ASS CHAIN” around his neck.

In the end, I gotta believe good music is good music and it can’t be destroyed. No matter how many silly songs the radio is paid to play, real artists will continue to create dope shit. My only fear is that the kids growing up today don’t have access to it like I did when I was 15. And now, instead of malt liquor and bammer weed, it’s Adderall & Oxycontin.

If only there was an I-phone app that helped you rap like Biggie.