T.I. was born Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. on September 25, 1980, in Riverdale, Ga., a southern Atlanta suburb, the son of the late Clifford “Buddy” Harris Sr. and Violeta Morgan. He was raised by his grandparents in the Bankhead section of Atlanta, a gritty high crime area where T.I. came of age. His father lived in New York and he would often go up there to visit him. His father suffered from Alzheimer’s and later died from the disease, says imdb.com.
T.I.’s superstar status in the rap game has it’s origin at age nine. Rap and rhyming became his constant companion as he emerged into Riverdale and Douglass High School and eventually dropped out to make his way in the drug trade. In addition to his nickname as “Tip,” which he was given to by his paternal great-grandfather, he was also known as the “Rubber Band Man” because of his propensity to wear them to denote wealth in terms of drugs or money,
All the while, Tip continued to refine his burgeoning rap skills and that, combined with his toughness and smoothness, made him an attractive commodity and it wasn’t long before the major labels came to scoop him up while he was still a teenager.
Kawan “KP” Prather, a record executive, discovered and signed T.I. when he was a teenager. Upon signing with Arista Records subsidiary LaFace Records in 2001, he shortened his name to T.I. out of respect for label mate Q-Tip, says biography.com.
