Nick Cannon, Mimi Valdes and T.I. during VIBE Vixen Featuring Kimora Lee Simmons Party at Dubois in New York, New York, United States. (Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage)
T.I. has had an extremely successful career in both film and music, but his acting career got off to a rocky start after he says he failed an audition for Nick Cannon‘s starring role in Drumline.
On Monday, the rapper told Shannon Sharpe’s ‘Club Shay Shay’ podcast, where T.I. admitted the failed audition due to his inability to play drums.
He went on to say that despite starring in such films as ATL (T.I.s acting debut) and American Gangster, Drumline could have very well been in his filmography, had he known how to play the drums.
Tip said he was in the midst of working on his first album when his manager told him to audition for a film, and that he had” to learn how to play the drums.”
“I was working on my first album, he was telling me about his first film and you know, I was always like, ‘Yo bruh, put me in it.’ And he was like, ‘Aight, yeah man! Say less.’ And he sent me to go read and I read and they were like, ‘Man, you got to learn how to play the drums.’ And I was like, ‘I could play like I could play the drums.’ They were like, ‘Nah, you gotta learn how.’ I was like ‘Mannn, I don’t wanna do that.’
The rapper said that even if he had gotten the role, he “didn’t want to commit myself to it at the time” as his music career began taking off.
“I just didn’t want to commit myself to it at the time. It wasn’t there. But I read and I didn’t get it, and that movie went on to be Drumline. Yeah, I was reading for Nick Cannon’s part. But look, that opened the door for me to do ATL! After I didn’t get the role for Drumline, I went back to Dallas and said, ‘Man next time bruh, just give me the role. I ain’t going to read or nothing! Just give me the role.’ And he was like, ‘Cool,’ and he just gave the role for Rashad in ATL.”
Tip went on to say that he and Nick often joke about story, and he added that he’s ultimately happy with how everything panned out.
But he did say he and Nick playfully bring it up from time to time, and that he remains happy despite not receiving the role in the end.
“A lot of times, Nick Cannon and I, we be going back and forth and we get on each other,” Tip said. “I be like, ‘Yea man, you took my role.’ And he say, ‘Yeah but I’da traded you for your role.’ I said, ‘You couldn’t have did my role!’ And we just have that kind of rapport. So I’m happy! You know, all things happen for a reason. What God got for you can’t no one take from you.”
2002’s Drumline would eventually go on to be a box office smash hit among moviegoers, earning upwards of $56 million in the United States and over a million abroad.
While Nick Cannon had previously appeared in two other films – including Men in Black II – Drumline was his first breakthrough in a starring role.
News of this revelation comes just days after the judge presiding over T.I. and his wife Tameka “Tiny” Harris‘s lawsuit against a toymaker declared a mistrial.
The Shade Room reported that jurors were tainted with prejudicial heresy after they heard a woman testifying she “did not want to support a company that steals from African Americans and their ideas.”
The lawsuit, filed against MGA Entertainment, claims the toy company stole from their daughter’s likeness for their LOL Surprise Dollz toy line, which the woman in question called cultural appropriation.
Zonnique Pullins, T.I.‘s stepdaughter, had previously been a part of the girl rap group OMG Girlz, whose likeness bares a shockingly resemblance to the aforementioned dolls, The Shade Room previously reported.
