T.I.'S Grand Hustle

In His Own Words, The Hip-hop Star Shares His Entrepreneurial Journey And How He Grew His Diverse Business Empire 

- Ed Gordon & Derek T. Dingle

FOR THOSE WHO THINK THAT THE RAPPER T.I. (aka Tip) is just another hip-hop artist then those lyrics from his 2005 hit are most appropriate. The Grammy Award-winning artist, whom entertainer/record producer Pharrell Williams once called “The Jay-Z of the South” has spent the past 15 years building a sprawling, multimillion-dollar business empire that extends into the entertainment, apparel, technology, and real estate sectors.

Ask T. I. about how he defines his entrepreneurial approach and he boils it down to the following audacious descriptor: “Grand Hustler.” In providing further elaboration, he asserts that he represents business people “willing to invest in themselves and work tirelessly to make their dreams come true regardless of their resources, conditions, or environment. They overcome every obstacle to make it happen.”

Clifford Harris Jr., 37, was raised by a single mother and grandparents in northwest Atlanta’s working class Center Hill community, where at an early age he learned that success was the byproduct of an unyielding entrepreneurial spirit. He started selling candy to his fifth-grade classmates and then graduated to making money in the drug trade as a teenager. A childhood acquaintance, however, encouraged him to use his musical talents as a rapper—he’s considered one of the originators of the Southern-flavor “trap music”—as a platform that could lead to wealth and fame. However, it was his early experience in the late 1990s with a major label, Arista’s LaFace Records, operated at the time by music mogul Antonio “L.A.” Reid and R&B crooner Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, that placed him on the path to independence and business diversification.