The King and I

We all know about T.I.’s personality conflict, thanks to his latest banger, T.I. vs. T.I.P. And just like the man can flip from the street hustle to the corporate takeover, he’s liable to go from flip-flops and socks to some mean suits. Peep him in the latter while he talkes to ‘Ye about the former. That’s big things (and collars) poppin’.  –Serena Kim

Kanye West: I wanted to come and interview you on some fashion shit because you got the crown, you killin’ shit. What do you think of the whole allover-print hoodie craze?
T.I.: I think when properly applied, it’s effective, but you got to do it in moderation. Anything where there’s too much logo and too much of a pattern, too overly done, it can get oversaturated. If you do one, it better be the best one out.

K.W.: I seen a lot of bootleg Bape shit…
T.I.: Yeah, like bootleg BBC.

K.W.: Yeah, and the dollar signs be a completely different shape and the diamonds…
T.I.: Ha, yeah.

K.W.: What designers do you fuck with?
T.I.: I’m classic American–Purple Label, Brooks Brothers. If I really want to step out, I do some Yves Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, of course, Gucci. Ferragamo do their thing, Paul Smith, you know, I could range from here to there, man. It depends on my mood.

K.W.: Do you believe in wearing sandals on vacation?
T.I.: I wear flip-flops with socks all the time. That’s my airport apparel: Louis flip-flops, fresh pair of socks, and sweatpants. I don’t oppose sandals on vacation, I just do it my way.

K.W.: I just came back from the Bahamas, and I went ahead and wore Jordans every day. What are your favorite colors right now?
T.I.: I’ve never had a favorite color. I can work with anything. I like black. I like white. I like yellow, orange, red, green. I’ve done lavender, turquoise, I’ve done peach.

K.W.: I can’t ’cause I’m dark skinned; there’s a certain green I can’t fuck with, and a certain burgundy.
T.I.: Yeah, burgundy, green, I do all that, I do lima-bean green, neon green, any color. It just gotta be the right ensemble, you know, you can’t force a color into a situation and expect it just to turn out okay.

K.W.: Do you have a specific stylist that you request? I seen you with the gray Louis Vuitton T-shirt with the white LVs on it—
T.I.: That was just me, fresh off the plane and out of bed. That wasn’t even the stylist that did that.

K.W.: What do you wear to award shows?
T.I.: It depends on the awards and on what I’ve done in recent history and what other people have done in recent history. Like, I can’t plan to wear all white to an event ’cause I know for sure I saw Akon in all white.

K.W.: Black motherfuckers love some all white to parties.
T.I.: I just did all black for the Grammys, the triple-black tuxedo.

K.W.: I love gray. I kill the gray American Apparel T-shirt. I wear that more than like a white tee now.
T.I.: White tees are one thing but that natural gray, that’s another nice color.

K.W.: What percentage of the free shit do you wear?
T.I.: If you send me a bunch of shit that look like I’m a walk outside and see three, four people with the same thing on—if I get a LRG box, they know not to send me their most popular pieces because I’m not gonna wear it. They send me something ahead of their release schedule, so it’ll give me about a month and a half to rock it before it start being all over the place. But I try not to take clothes that I don’t wear.

K.W.: How much money do you spend on clothes a year?
T.I.: Geesh, probably about a half a million dollars. I don't want to overshoot it and say a cool ticket, but it could very well be a half, without embellishment.

K.W.: Complex got a stupid question at the end of this list they gave me that they probably thought sounded like a question I would have asked. What’s your policy on diamonds? Is your jewelry conflict-free?
T.I.: It’s free of conflict upon me receiving it. Where they would distribute it from, I don't know, I know they came from Turkey. My jeweler’s Turkish, and that's about all I know. If you’d like to holler at Fezzy, Fezzy could tell you if they’re conflict-free. I could call him for you.

K.W.: Man, that ain’t my question.

* Later, T.I.’s rep confirmed that Fezzy’s diamonds are conflict-free.

Photographs by Phil Knott
Styling by Anoma Ya Whittaker