T-Pain tells the painful truth: Tour cancelled because of low ticket sales, not the need for a break

T-Pain told his Instagram followers the truth about why he cancelled his tour. Photo / AP

Singer and rapper T-Pain did what many musicians can find hard to do: tell the truth.

Yesterday, the singer and rapper told his fans in an Instagram video that he would be canceling his upcoming tour because of low ticket sales.

In his video, the Tallahassee native - he has dubbed himself the "Tallahassee hero" in his songs - told his fans that the tour would've been a "bad look" for him and that they would not have been entertained. Therefore, he said, he's made the choice to cancel his 1UP DLC Tour.

"I was advised to lie about this and say that I needed some time or I needed some alone time or me time," he said, telling viewers that he was advised to not admit that his team messed up. "We (messed) up. I'm going to keep it real with y'all."

T-Pain, whose legal name is Faheem Rasheed Najm, told fans that whenever concerts are canceled, it's because of low ticket sales. It's wrong, he said, to use that excuse.

"I appreciate the tickets that we did sell although the ticket sales were very low, and they were low because we didn't set it up right," he said, mentioning that he and his team were running on the fuel from his last tour.

Through representatives, T-Pain declined to comment.

As T-Pain plots out his next move for his album, Berklee College of Music Prof. George Howard said it's one of the best courses T-Pain could've taken.

The 30-year music business veteran and professor of music business management said it's rare for anyone in any discipline to admit fault.

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A post shared by T-Pain (@tpain) on Oct 21, 2019 at 6:09pm PDT

T-Pain's confession appeared genuine to Howard, but he also wouldn't doubt if the Instagram announcement would help T-Pain.

"All these people who were not talking about T-Pain are now talking about him," he said, noting his own interest. "He went from a very one-dimensional artist to a human being."

Rumors about low ticket sales swirled around fellow rapper Nicki Minaj this year when she canceled two shows at the last minute, citing technical difficulties at the venues and leaving angry fans in Bratislava, Slovakia, and Bordeaux, France, in her wake. Ticket sales were also slow in London, according to the Guardian.

Canceling shows is unfair to fans who spend their "hard-earned money," T-Pain said Tuesday.

"You can't hold on to a mistake just because you spent a long time making it," he said.

Howard agreed that planning a tour within a month based on another tour is a bad idea. Most artists don't have enough brand power to last them for such stretches unless they are superstars, he said.

T-Pain has had three No. 1 hits on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and 46 songs overall to have entered the charts. His second album, released in 2007, was the sole release out of his six records to reach No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart, according to Billboard.

He had a resurgence of attention this year when he was revealed to be the masked singer on the hit Fox show "The Masked Singer."

"This is amazing," Howard said about T-Pain's Instagram post. "Perhaps this is a tipping point and perhaps our elected officials will take note of that."