What T.I.’s ‘Trap Muzik’ Still Gets Right About the South 20 Years Later

This week, Billboard is publishing a series of lists and articles celebrating the music of 20 years ago. Our 2003 Week continues here with a rewind to the release of T.I.’s breakthrough album Trap Muzik — a classic set that helped coin a genre name and has aged beautifully in its portrayal of life in the South, although less gracefully in certain other ways.

People still don’t really know what trap music is. At least 20 years into its history, plenty of listeners merely associate it as a sound that can be adopted and discarded by white pop and country stars for aesthetic purposes. But to chalk it up to some dark 808s and a few stylistic choices completely erases vital history of Southern rap music and mutes the lives of Black southerners who trapped as a means of survival. 

It could be debated whether the true genesis of trap music stemmed from acts like UGK on the weary, sizzling, “Pocket Full of Stones” in 1992 or 8Ball & MJG’s thick, funky “9 Little Millimeta Boys” in ’93. Some also argue that real trap music from Atlanta steers closer to the mid-to-late ‘00s Gucci Mane tapes or Jeezy records. But T.I. famously coined the term in 2003 with his breakthrough album Trap Muzik and gave much needed dimension to Black southerners trying to escape poverty in the process. 

Born Clifford Harris in Bankhead, Atlanta, Georgia, T.I. started rapping as a kid and making mixtapes with his friend Big Kuntry King — known best for his collaborations under T.I.’s group P$C. By 1999, T.I. would sign to LaFace Records and drop his debut album I’m Serious in 2001. It’s a fine record, but it’s smudged by the label’s heavy fingerprints: While T.I.’s raw rapping bursts with personality, the Neptunes beats and borderline Cash Money/No Limit cosplay offer an underwhelming sample platter in place of a true spotlight. Songs like “Dope Boyz” do highlight T.I.’s vivid and distinct writing about drug dealing and Atlanta landmarks and lay the groundwork for what Trap Muzik would become. But I’m Serious flopped, the self-titled lead single didn’t chart and the label would drop T.I. shortly after. 

Atlanta still showed love to T.I., because he helped showcase another side of the city that Outkast and the rest of the Dungeon Family hadn’t. Where records like Stankonia showed the funky soul and crunk artists like Lil Jon showed the rambunctious, abrasive energy, there was T.I. in a baggy t-shirt and a massive fitted hat, speaking intimately to his neighborhood and those like it. T.I. would take that local support and hit the mixtape market, soon forming his own indie Grand Hustle and taking the label to sign with Atlantic. By 2003, his appearance on Bone Crusher’s mammoth headbanger “Never Scared” would cement T.I.’s stardom and would set the table for the takeover of Trap Muzik.

The thesis statement for Trap Muzik lies on the humid, soulful “Doin My Job.” Over a triumphant Kanye West beat, he explains drug dealing as just another job, no different than being a tradesman or flipping burgers. T.I. urges those who disparage him to consider them as people trying to survive when other avenues won’t open up. The rhetorical question at the end of the first verse sizzles in contempt for those who talk down on him, “Oh, you think we out here killin’ for nothin’ hustling for no gain?” T.I. frames the record like a debate, throwing rebuttals for every assumption made about him and people who live in the streets. 

The third verse provides the most clarity, that even though this is what he has to do, this isn’t something he wants to do. He insists, “We can’t help it ‘cause it is like this, we don’t like it no more than you that we live like this.” When bills had to be paid, food needed to be put on the table, there was T.I. trying to help ends meet for his family: “Since 13, I been hustling and earning my keep.” He provided a vital service in providing empathy for street life when otherwise demonized by the media in the aftermath of a post-Reaganomics America.

But that doesn’t mean Trap Muzik was meant to glamorize the streets. Towards the end of the album, there’s “Be Better Than Me,” a timeless bit of advice in the name of self preservation. “Shawty, them streets ain’t the place to be, I’m telling you ‘cuz it’s too late for me… Crackers love nun’ better to see than a young n— with a felony sheet, so be better than me.” T.I. was only rapping about his everyday life, that if rapping didn’t pay off, he’d be back on the corner, trying to survive another day. 

While Trap Muzik plays a vital role in telling the stories of street life in Bankhead, Atlanta, it’s also just an unimpeachable rap album. T.I’s third single off the album, “Rubber Band Man,” is one of the most invigorating rap hits of all time and marked his first crossover hit, reaching No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. David Banner’s production here is a religious experience; the organs, the chorus of kids on the hook, T.I.’s stellar trash-talking, “Young Cassius Clay of my day, Marvin Gaye of my time/ Tryna stay alive, living how I say in my rhymes.” It’s one of the South’s many great country-fried rap psalms. 

Meanwhile, “24’s” is a deeply cathartic record. As lead single for the album, it led with the southern distinctions but was muscular enough in its anthemic hook to punch through national rap charts. It was also defiant towards coastal supremacy in hip-hop still prevalent at the time; traditionalists turned their nose up at southern music and coded their biases in realness. When people would view Southern hip-hop and anybody who lives there as dumb and ignorant, “24’s” embraces the excess as something to celebrate. T.I. chants all the things his friends love, “money, hoes, cars, and clothes… blowing dro on 24s.” It’s staggeringly simple — almost abrasive in how straightforward it is — but it’s the truest thing he could say. It’s a self assured record, not just for T.I. and his crew but inclusive in its aspirations for the finer things in life.  

T.I.’s takes on romance and his sly player bravado was perhaps his greatest strength. The music industry at the time absolutely loved hip-hop and R&B crossover records, to present a softer side to rappers and to maximize the female audience who might grow weary of the music’s overbearing machismo and aggressive tones. But there weren’t a lot of national heartthrobs in southern rap: Crunk was sweaty and intense, it wasn’t the main focus for Outkast, and New Orleans was busy customizing Chevy Suburbans and PT Cruisers. But then there was T.I. and his country drawl, kicking game in a wifebeater to any woman in a bikini willing to listen. “Let’s Get Away” was one of the album’s biggest crossover hits, a suave pool party record that spotlighted T.I.’s gift at connecting with the ladies. T.I.’s second verse on “Let Me Tell You Something” is deeply sweet and affectionate, desiring to give this woman the world over Kanye’s “I Want to Be Your Man” flip. He raps at an intimate whisper, “But anyway, when I see your face, I’m thinking three or four days in Montego Bay… I wanna be the reason why you showing ya teeth, without a worry in the world when you rollin’ with me.” 

At times, however, the T.I. persona from ‘03 can clash with the man we know today. T.I. and his wife Tiny were investigated by the LAPD over a slew of sexual assault and drugging allegations from 11 people in 2021. Although the couple denied the allegations and the charges were dropped due to the 10-year statute of limitations, it’s hard not to hear some skeeviness and extremely pushy advances when listening to Trap Muzik in 2003. On “Let’s Get Away,” he asks, “What’s a p—y pumper?” and quickly retorts “Want a demonstration? But I ain’t waitin’ til the second date, I’m so impatient.” In the second verse, he smirks about the ecstasy kicking in and how she’s begging him to stick it in, sparking uneasy questions throughout his textbook smooth-talking. Even when lines play slightly more innocent, like on “Let Me Tell You Something” (“So what if I got a pass, was labeled a dirtbag/ By the many hearts I broken and women I hurt bad?”), it could still be misread by those rightfully skeptical of “good intentions.” In larger service to the album, these records are still vital for understanding T.I. in 2003 and belie any singular portrait of him as just a street rapper. 

In the years that followed, T.I. would grow into a full-blown superstar, his grand visions of being the “Jay-Z of the South” fully realized on 2004’s Urban Legend and 2006’s massive crowning moment King.  Slowly but surely, T.I. would pivot away from his Southern rap distinctions, forsaking regional flavor for world-conquering hits – if it wasn’t for the unmistakable twang in his voice, the guy with inescapable chart-toppers like “Whatever You Like” would be just another pop rapper. That’s what makes Trap Muzik such a special record in T.I.’s discography and ‘00s hip-hop, a seamless balancing act of Southern flair, unstoppable rapping, and bulletproof hitmaking. It sounds like the South, thick, muggy air, heat sizzling off the asphalt, subwoofers thumping out of countless Chevys and Cadillacs. On “King of da South,” he boasts, “I set the city on fire and you seen that s–t.” 20 years later, the flame still burns bright.