TI's Home 4 Xmas Deal and What it Means for Hip Hop (Editorial)

[Mumbo Sauce]

In a year where everyone from Super Bowl winning pro athletes to a slew of rappers are being served jail time for crimes that normally land probation, ATL's "King of the South" is reportedly out of federal prison and serving the remainder of his sentence in a halfway house. I'm sure this will fuel speculation by "the streets" that something is fuzzy about the case but in any event its good to see another rapper home to spend time with his family. On the flipside, I'm also sure that there's at least 1,000 young men who will commit a crime and expect a "TI Deal". Since you can't buy your way out of serving Federal time, the ATL jurisdiction may really feel that TI as a role model and advocate to discuss the "harsh realities" of life to at-risk youth is more valuable than serving 30 years.

This case has played out like a fairy tale, almost unbelievable, and definitely an insult hip hop's collective common sense. TIP was caught with more weapons than any 3 episodes of The A-Team combined as a convicted felon. Is TI the real-life Nino Brown?
No matter how you slice it, even Sammy The Bull 's legendary snitchery couldn't shave 29 years and 1 day off a 30 year sentence. Besides, in this era of social networking and the "quick to expose a rapper" The Smoking Gun.com - not too many documents of public record can get by without people and their camera phones noticing. A signed document of snitchery from TI would be worth MILLIONS to the Smoking Gun and would lead to millions of views to any blog who broke the story. If it existed it would be posted, but what if a deal was reached where records would be sealed out of concern for TIP's "image"?? Talking to the cops would certainly hurt his impact to reach at-risk youth, which is the whole basis for the "TI Deal" in the first place.

The hip hop world is happy for TIP, but many can't help feeling that there is something else going on with this case, maybe a deal reached at levels between powerful factions, as TI's record label was heavily involved in supporting the case financially. There's a lot of "old money" backing these labels or as The Bawse would put it "The Truth is Much More Sinister"

Looking at the bigger picture, this case sets an awful precedent for the rest of inner city America who lack the access and the resources to the "TI Deal". Add that to the fact that the court wasn't really clear on how or why the judge decided to give 1 year and 1 day. Even mandatory minimum federal sentencing guidelines are higher than that.

Judging by the content on his last album, I believe that this last brush with the law may have actually scared T.I. straight more so than the 32 other times he's been arrested. It would be real disappointing to see TIP back on his D-Boy style especially in an era when rappers who were raised in Catholic School can get tatted up at 19 and claim they're from The Trap or even worse "join" the "Bloods" street gang in parts of the country where there are no active sets. We'll see how the release affects his creative output and the quality of music being dropped in the future.

How do you feel the "TI Deal" will affect sentencing of rappers in the future?