Rapper T-Pain keeps a close eye on his ticket sales.
So, when he checked the numbers ahead of his appearance at The Factory in Deep Ellum for a May 18 show, he was not happy — and turned to TikTok in an expletive-laced rant to his 2.5 million followers.
In the video posted Sunday, T-Pain cites numbers from a spreadsheet that tracks the percentages of tickets sold for each stop of his “The Road to Wiscansin Tour.” Against a backdrop of the spreadsheet, he calls out Dallas in particular with sharp words about the venue selling only 26% of its tickets.
“What did I do! Let me know what I did! What’s going on?” he says in the video.
He continues: “I wore cowboy hats many times. I used to raise horses. I feel like I’m part of the city. I’ve worn a cowboy hat or two, you know what I’m sayin’? Regular cowboy and Dallas Cowboys, I’ve done both!”
T-Pain, 37, starts his 17-city tour May 10 in San Francisco. He reaches Texas on May 17 with a stop in Austin, the day before his Dallas show. The numbers shown in the video indicate that he sold out Los Angeles (May 12); Richmond, Va. (May 28) and the first of his two Chicago shows (June 8). His second show on June 9 has only 26% sales.
On Friday, he sold out his a #FeelGoodFriday Spring ‘22 Concert at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Ga.
Born Faheem Rasheed Najm, the rapper with six studio albums and 21 singles to his name started his career in 2005 and later popularized a style of rap using the pitch correction effect known as Auto-Tune. In 2010, he won a Grammy for best rap song for “Good Life.” He also won a second Grammy in 2010 for best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocals.
Calls to The Factory at Deep Ellum went to voicemail on Monday.
Dallas police closed some Deep Ellum streets to vehicle traffic on Friday and Saturday nights in response to rising pedestrian traffic. The closures came after a string of violence in the city on recent weekends.
On Sunday, two people were shot and wounded in the 2800 block of Elm Street. In February, a man was hospitalized in critical condition after a shooting in the 3000 block of Canton Street.
In September, after a mass shooting, Dallas Police Chief Eddie García said Deep Ellum would be a focus for police moving forward.
“There’s not an entertainment district in any major city in America that isn’t susceptible to some violence,” he said. “And unfortunately it occurs. But when it does occur, because of the fact that these areas are so populous, police departments need to respond in kind. So, that’s why we’re going to be more present.”
