T-Pain Stuns With Raw Vocals: Singer Sings Without His Signature Auto-Tune in Rare Performance [VIDEOS]
When Auto-Tune is mentioned, T-Pain’s name is the first to come to mind. The American singer is so famous for using the audio processing effect that people thought he could never sing without it. It turned out he has an incredible voice without Auto-Tune.
Performing his hit song “Buy You a Drank” without his signature Auto-Tune, the 29-year-old crooner stunned everyone with his raw vocals. NPR Music asked him to perform for its Tiny Desk Concert, wherein he showed the few members in the audience, as well as the millions of viewers on YouTube, that he can actually sing.
Although he isn’t the pioneer user of the sound enhancement tool, many people assume that he is since he is often blamed for apparently changing the sound of pop music. His own songs and collaborative tracks from other artists all incorporate the use Auto-Tune. He even released an auto-tuner app on iPhone.
“People felt like I was using it to sound good,” T-Pain said of his Auto-Tune use. “But I was just using it to sound different.”
He was successful in that regard. He truly sounds different with Auto-Tune that people were surprised upon hearing his real, unedited singing voice. He sang three songs in the intimate show, namely “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” “Up Down (Do This All Day)” and “Drankin’ Patna.”
The YouTube video of his performance was uploaded on Wednesday, and since then, there has been over 2.7 million views already. Commenters have been shocked that the rapper has soothing vocals that are comparable to that of many R&B crooners’.
“New respect for hsi vocal skill when you strip away his signature effects,” YouTube user Asher Simonds commented. “Now he just needs to write some songs that match it.”
“This was actually entertaining. I always wondered what his real singing voice sounded like,” Regan Hinton added.
“...But after listening to this video I give my respect to T-Pain. I have had beliefs where these type of ‘artists’ don’t actually know how to sing and they just alter the sounds of their voice to make it something they can sell to the masses. But this totally alters my opinion of him,” Tyler Robbins also wrote.
Some viewers weren’t surprised, though, saying he wouldn’t have sounded good in his record with Auto-Tune if he didn’t have great vocals in the first place.
“funny how everyone is shocked, like no s---, have you never used auto tune? It is not magic!” natemorey said.
Listen to T-Pain without Auto-Tune here:
