T-Pain recalls Usher waking him up on a flight to tell him he ruined music


T-Pain was napping on a flight to the BET Awards in 2013 when a flight attendant woke him to let him know Usher wanted to have a chat.
The rapper initatied small-talk, but then Usher said, "I'm gonna tell you something, man. You kinda f‑‑‑ed up music," T-Pain recalled in a preview for the Netflix series This Is Pop published via Entertainment Weekly. He thought it was a joke before Usher went on to say T-Pain's use of Auto-Tune "f---ed up music for real singers." T-Pain defended himself by saying he used Auto-Tune (quite iconically), but didn't tell everyone else to use it. Reflecting on the conversation, T-Pain admitted it spawned self-doubt: "That's the very moment that started a four-year depression for me."
He clarified on Twitter he still respects Usher and the moment was "a drop in the ocean" of what he was already going through.
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Taylor Watson is audience engagement editor for TheWeek.com and a former editorial assistant. She graduated from Syracuse University, with a major in magazine journalism and minors in food studies and nutrition. Taylor has previously written for Runner's World, Vice, and more.
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