While T.I. laments the friends and fans who have turned their back on him following his latest, and arguably dumbest brush with the law, recent developments have shown that not every friend is now a foe. Longtime rap brother-in-arms David Banner recently spoke in support of his embattled friend, stemming the tide of bad press towards the King of the South. While Banner served as a guest on MTV News’ “RapFix Live,” the rapper offered the following:
On T.I.’s resilience …
T.I.’s probably one of the strongest dudes that I ever met. Since the first day I met him, he was the shortest dude in the room but had his chest poked out the furthest [and] always kept his head up.
Sharing an example of how he’s witnessed the resiliency …
Even when his first situation went down with the label, he totally pulled [himself] off the label and started back over again; he’s … been up against adversity all of his life.
On T.I.’s status as a human being before his celebrity …
Everybody expects entertainers to raise [their] family. One thing that he said that really struck me is that we’re still men; there’s still certain repercussions as black men in America with everybody’s eyes being on you. From the streets to business, we’re still men, we’re not gods. We’re not perfect. The thing that America has done, every mistake that a young black man makes — and not that he couldn’t have made better decisions — but in life, period, everybody that’s behind these cameras that’s on the Internet or whatever, look at the mistakes you make every day in life. If you made one or two mistakes, and then every time you make one or two mistakes, everybody is on you, that’s a lot of pressure [for] a person.
