A little over a week ago, T-Pain held his first-ever Wiscansin Fest in Milwaukee’s The Rave (also known as the Eagles Club). The live-streamed event also saw support from the likes of Lil Jon, Bleu, K Camp, O.T. Genasis, Kid Ink, Juvenile, Erica Banks, and Hannibal Buress, who performed under his musical moniker Eshu Tune.
Just prior to the big event, T-Pain gushed about Wiscansin Fest’s creation via an official press release:
“I’m super excited to team up with LiveOne to globally stream the first-ever ‘Wiscansin Festival.’ ‘Wiscansin Fest’ has been something I wanted to plan for years now and finally it is happening. This will be an annual event moving forward and there is something super special about capturing the very first one. It is going to be a party and I want people who won’t physically be at the venue to be able to experience it as well.”
During his set, T-Pain decided to break out an unreleased freestyle over JAY-Z‘s “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune). Released as a single for The Blueprint 3, the No I.D.-produced offering set the world on fire back in 2009 and (arguably) had a lasting effect on T-Pain‘s career due to his popularization of the audio processor it’s named after. The Nappy Boy head honcho‘s version mixes the use of Auto-Tune with some of his most aggressive bars ever, a reminder to all who forget about T-Pain‘s overall talents with or without technology.
In a fairly recent episode of REVOLT’s “Drink Champs,” T-Pain broke down the creation of said freestyle to N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN:
“I made the record after I did a show in Vegas and everybody in the crowd was like, ‘JAY-Z killed you, bro!’ I was like, ‘All right, I’m never doing shows again!’ … I ended the show early and then I just tried to drink myself to death … I was just ready to go, man. I went in the studio and started recording the record.”
Check out a full stream of Wiscansin Fest — including T-Pain‘s performance of his “D.O.A.” freestyle at about 7 hours and 17 minutes in — below.