Students celebrate with T-Pain as 2017 Barefoot headliner

East Carolina University’s annual Barefoot on the Mall headliner is T-Pain, and students say they couldn’t be more excited.

Under the canopy of neon lights, hundreds of students were present for the live announcement of this year’s Barefoot on the Mall artist at Tuesday’s “Rollerskates & Milkshakes” event. ECU’s Student Activities Board (SAB) revealed T-Pain as the headliner after playing a hip-hop mix of his discography. Students began singing along to the mix and applauding in excitement after DJ Born Finesser announced the date of the event. “I almost dropped my milkshake when I heard Born Finesser make that announcement,” Naomi Wright, a sophomore political science major, said. “T-Pain was quite the surprise, but he’s the perfect choice for a Barefoot artist.”

Barefoot on the Mall is an old ECU tradition, doubling as a concert and festival, according to SAB’s website. This will be the 41st Barefoot, and will be held on April 23 at 3 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Rapper Faheem Najm, better known by his performing moniker T-Pain, is a Florida-native whose discography includes hit singles such as “I’m Sprung” and “Bartender (Shawty Snappin’).” From pop to hip-hop, T-Pain has also made a name for himself with his collaborative efforts, working with artists such as Bruno Mars and Kanye West.

Throughout his singing career, T-Pain is best known for popularizing the creative use of the Auto-Tune, a pitch correction effect which utilizes extreme parameter settings in order to generate a distinctive, digitized sound. The rapper’s unique sound has earned him numorous accolades, including two Grammys and one People’s Choice Award. “This will (be) a throwback concert that I think most students will appreciate for sure,” Justin Kellenfield, a senior music education and music therapy double major, said. “With all the mainstream music we’ve gotten so accustomed to, it’ll be nice to hear some jams that will take me back to middle school. I can’t say I’m disappointed to have T-Pain perform at the last ‘Barefoot’ I’ll attend.”

More recently, T-Pain has made his way back to the mainstream for winning Season One of Fox’s “The Masked Singer,” a televised singing competition where celebrities concealed their identities in elaborate costumes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7r3seBU9VE

As “The Monster,” T-Pain wowed the judging panel week after week, with covers of songs such as Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” and Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

"Just to hear all the compliments and to hear everybody praising so much, it was pretty cool to hear that," T-Pain said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight earlier this month. "To see them appreciate so much of what I did, it was it was pretty cool."

Darrius Barrow, the assistant director for Student Programming at ECU, attended the live Barefoot. Grinning from ear to ear at the event, Barrow cites the positive reactions received both on social media and at “Rollerskates & Milkshakes” as confirmation that “SAB made the right decision picking him to headline this year’s Barefoot on the Mall.”

“Every year, we try to listen to the students and look at trends in the music industry and try to figure out what makes the most sense for the event,” Barrow said. “When this year came around, we really saw that T-Pain was making a resurgence on the music scene. T-Pain is also an artist and a name with such a long list of songs that all of our current students know, love and have loved for a long time, so booking him this year was a real no brainer.”

For more updates on Barefoot festivities and the upcoming announcement of the event’s opening act, visit the ECU SAB’s Twitter, website or Instagram page.