Hip hop star T-Pain spent an hour answering questions, telling stories of murder and exotic dancers, and dishing out advice to CSU Bakersfield students during a Zoom meeting on Aug. 28. Along with refunding the concert tickets that had already been sold, Campus Programming arranged for a question and answer session that was open to all CSUB students. 

T-Pain showed up with a tie made of mirrors and was prepared to spend an hour filled with questions, jokes and stories, never failing to keep the students engaged and chatting about various topics. 

“I’ve been thinking of questions to ask him all week,” Esther Pacheco wrote in the chat. Like many others, Pacheco was excited about the opportunity to talk with T-Pain. 

Meanwhile, other students raised concerns over CSUB potentially using T-Pain’s digital appearance to prevent students from complaining about more serious issues. 

“CSUB was like ‘Hey, we can’t reduce tuition, so stop [explicit] asking’ and then sends us an invite to Zoom with T-Pain,” Grace Davidson posted in the chat.  

While the Q&A only allowed a handful of students to ask their questions verbally, moderator Ty Brako relayed a variety of inquiries from the chat box. Topics ranged everywhere from favorite universities to perform at to why T-Pain decided to get into the music industry.  

Some questions asked did get rather personal, including students’ questions surrounding the unnamed exotic dancer from T-Pain’s song, “I’m N Luv”.  

“It was a random house stripper. In Tallahassee, we’re not allowed to have strip clubs; we had strip houses. If you saw a house with a police light, that’s where you wanted to be,” T-Pain explained. 

Other stories took a comically dark twist, as T-Pain recalled the time someone tried to kill him. Providing the details of a man becoming enraged at T-Pain’s calm composure after a car accident, the whole chat found themselves expressing hysterical delight over the nonsense that his celebrity status has caused him to endure.   

T-Pain isn’t shy when asked about his own education either, openly stating that he dropped out of school at the end of eighth grade. 

“I was fat. I didn’t want to tuck in my shirt and show my stomach more. I got suspended. It didn’t matter what my grades were; that was an automatic fail. So my dad decided to pull me out of that school,” T-Pain elaborated 

Of course, T-Pain shared some of his words of wisdom with all Runners as well. 

“Don’t ask anybody for advice. Always, my advice is to [not take advice] because if I took advice early in my career, we wouldn’t be talking,” T-Pain said. 

Confusing as it may sound, T-Pain does encourage students to listen to “the person who has been through the tunnel.”  

According to T-Pain, advice from those without experience can prove faulty, advice from those that have experience can save people from a lot of hardship.  

Closing the event by blasting “KLINK” by Smino, T-Pain grooved to the beat. It was time for the self-proclaimed PC gamer to sign off, allowing him to return his focus to the comforts of his own home as he enjoys best.