For their upcoming August/September 2010 Style and Design issue, Complex enlisted two of Atlanta’s hottest emcees T.I. and B.o.B. for two different covers. In the issue, Tip discussed why he’s still the King of Atlanta regardless of what other artists claim.
“Nobody can take away from my title by feeling like they hot,” he stated. “In order for them to be the hottest, I have to see them being the hottest thing in Atlanta. My music speaks for itself. My influence speaks for itself. You can be the hottest right now, but that’s only because I ain’t dropped yet. When we drop shit at the same time, then we gonna see who gets more burn. When they drop your record in the club, then they drop mine, we gonna see who get more of a reaction. When your first-week numbers come in, we gonna see who have more sales. You or me. Saying you the hottest? You have that right—but when it’s time to show and prove, we gonna see who really deliver.”
T.I. also discussed the possibility of retiring from rap music. Although he did not specify whether he was planning on retiring following the release of his upcoming album King Uncaged, he did say that his upcoming 30th birthday has put the remainder of his career into perspective.
“I’m kickin’ 30 down this year, so it’s about time to start thinking about an exit strategy,” he said. “I’m not saying this is my last album or the next album is my last album, but I don’t see myself rappin’ for 10 or 20 more years. Although I could. Let’s say I do it for five more years, and after that, when I do an album, it’ll be an event. It’s not going to be day in, day out. Maybe every two or three years, a world tour, the whole shebang.”
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Complex also spoke to budding Grand Hustle emcee B.o.B., who recently released his debut The Adventures of Bobby Ray. The Atlanta native discussed how he plans not to be pigeonholed as a pop-rap hitmaker.
“Honestly, even if I did get put into a mold, I just wouldn’t fulfill it,” B.o.B. explained. “At this point, I don’t think I can get pigeonholed, because it’s expected to do something that’s unexpected. But I think that you can sometimes be too broad, which I don’t wanna do. I’m really trying to make my own type of sound. When I go to record the next album, I’m just gonna keep recording. Because I feel like the hard part’s out of the way. Now is the easy part. Now is making music, which is what I’ve been doing already—but to actually get to the point where the people who need to hear my music can hear it, I need to do a lot more work that doesn’t involve music. A lot of politics, a lot of touching different worlds, a lot of traveling.”
The full cover stories and final covers for the issue can be found here.
