Source: Todd Kirkland / Getty
Here’s a question: Is it OK to “snitch” on someone if said someone has passed away? What if said person who has transitioned didn’t actually do the thing they’re being snitched on for? Is it even really snitching if that’s the case?
Fortunately, all of these questions have been answered expeditiously by none other than the original Trap Muzik rapper, T.I.
A resurfaced clip from an August 2020 episode of T.I.’s expediTIously podcast showed the “U Don’t Know Me” rapper recalling a time in the early 2000s, just before his rap career took off when he got out of a gun charge by pinning it on his cousin.
From Hip Hop DX:
“We at Lennox Mall parking lot, we unload the truck [of stolen clothes], I’m talking to the man while I’m making the play,” he remembered. “This n-gga looking at everything like, ‘Man, y’all got, y’all got?!’ ‘Muthaf**ka, we done said what you want! Get this sh*t and go!’
“And right then, mall security [pull up] … We get in the car and we pull off, and then of course, they followed behind us and called the real police. So before we actually get on the expressway, the real police pull us over. I have a gun.”
Toot — who introduced T.I. to DJ Toomp, the producer behind hits like “What You Know,” “24’s” and “U Don’t Know Me” — was murdered during the court case. At the urging of his lawyer — and with Toot’s posthumous blessing — Tip avoided incarceration by claiming the gun belonged to his cousin.
“We caught those gun cases, Toot died. My lawyer said, ‘Well, you know, I could make everything go away if it was Toot’s, it was Tremel’s,’” he said. “After he had passed, I had a talk with him. Toot said, ‘I’ll take all the charges you got! If you can walk away free and put it on me, goddamn right! ‘Cause I’ll be damned if they gon’ come and muthaf**king extradite me from here!’”
Obviously, Black Twitter had some things to say about Tip throwing his dead cousin under the bus and then claiming that Toot gave him permission from the grave to do so.
I meeeean, whether T.I. really got posthumous permission from his cousin to point the finger at him to avoid a gun charge or not, this seems to be the “no harm, no foul” thing Tip implied it was when he quoted Toot’s ghost as saying, “I’ll be damned if they gon’ come and muthaf**king extradite me from here!’”
How exactly is it “snitching” when the person getting “snitched” on can’t be locked up unless the underworld has a prison system and an extradition policy?
So, what do y’all think? Was T.I. wrong for using his cousin’s death to skate on a charge? Is it simply his family and his business? Does it even really count as snitching if no one had to go to prison so he T.I. could go free?
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