A Man of Many Parts Wants More

FOR T. I., the rapper, actor, novelist, reality-television star and former resident of the Forrest City Federal Correctional Complex in Arkansas, existential accountings are routine and often occur in the oddest of places. So he seemed unfazed to find himself, on a recent Wednesday afternoon in Hell’s Kitchen on the set of Current TV’s “Joy Behar: Say Anything!,” amiably fielding questions about federal weapons charges, the emotional veracity of his family’s VH1 show, “T. I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle,” and the long-term romantic prospects of his fellow pop stars Chris Brown and Rihanna.

The conversation veered from the aggressively personal to the patently absurd, and T. I. kept pace. In person, as on record, he is fluent and at ease, slow to take offense, though quick to respond. A question about Bankhead, the rough neighborhood in Atlanta where he grew up, led to a conversation about the disproportionate salaries of corrections officers relative to schoolteachers. The brassy, diminutive Ms. Behar began listing the names of her guest’s six children — “Messiah Ya’ Majesty,” she said quizzically, naming one of T. I.’s sons. “That’s a little long, isn’t it?”

Producers cued up a clip of Ms. Behar on the ABC show “The View,” enthusiastically gyrating to “Whatever You Like,” his multiplatinum 2008 single. “You know, I still do that dance for my husband every night,” Ms. Behar said.

“Oh man,” T. I. said, burying his head in his hands, a diamond-covered Rolex on his left wrist catching the light.

The scene was surreal, but no more surreal than any other moment in the unceasingly public life of T. I., born Clifford Harris. At 32 he is already in the 12th year of a career in a music business where longevity is rare and second acts are nearly unheard-of. He has been to federal prison twice in the last four years, first on weapons charges and then again on a probation violation. In that time he also released 2008’s double platinum “Paper Trail” (Grand Hustle/Atlantic), his most commercially successful album, and 2010’s “No Mercy” (Grand Hustle/Atlantic), a commercial and critical disappointment that had its debut while he was incarcerated.

“Trouble Man: Heavy Is the Head” (Grand Hustle/Atlantic), out this week, is his eighth album. “T. I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle” finished its second season on VH1 this month. He recently concluded a multiepisode arc on “Boss,” acting with Kelsey Grammer on the show, which Starz canceled; and in February he will appear with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy in the film comedy “Identity Thief.” This fall William Morrow published his second novel, “Trouble & Triumph,” written with David Ritz. He has a clothing line, Akoo; a record label, Grand Hustle; and aspirations for still more.

“I definitely want to find other things outside of music and entertainment to get myself into,” T. I. said, backstage after bidding Ms. Behar a cheerful farewell. “The technology field — I would love to find a way to team up with someone and collectively present something to the world that affects people in everyday life.”

Improbable tech entrepreneur or cautionary tale? Model family man or the last truly street-oriented rapper standing? T. I., perhaps more than any other musician currently working, embodies all the contradictions and weird juxtapositions that have come to define late-stage rap stardom. Like Jay-Z or P. Diddy he has become as much a walking brand as a working musician, a rap star whose presence extends far past the recording booth, onto the pages of Us Weekly and into the homes of millions of cable subscribers. He is a remarkably deft and gifted rapper who has increasingly developed his talents in arenas that have nothing to do with rap.

The path of rapper turned businessman is well trod. But fewer artists have transitioned as seamlessly into the larger entertainment world, and almost none have retained their credibility and vitality as musicians while doing so. Jeff Olde, executive vice president for production and programming at VH1, observed that T. I. has managed to broaden his appeal without diluting it.

“In this media age the audience understands that people can be multifaceted and multitalented,” Mr. Olde said. “You can be a fantastic actor, you can have an amazingly successful reality show, you can be an incredible music artist. I don’t think that it’s just one thing anymore.”

“Troubleman: Heavy Is the Head,” is among the most vital and assured of T. I.’s recent records. It is at once a return to his dexterous early efforts and a step toward newer notions of adulthood and responsibility — a fine line. “I calmed down for my kids and my mom,” T. I. raps on “Who Want Some,” immediately before taunting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the law-enforcement agency that arrested him in 2007: “F.Y.I. I never put my arms down/Tell the A.T.F. I got three more .380s left.”

T. I. has many constituencies now, not all of them reconcilable. On “Troubleman” piquant barrages of boasts and threats alternate with more tempered songs aimed at larger audiences, which may know T. I. primarily as the genial patriarch he plays on television. Young of-the-moment rappers like ASAP Rocky and Meek Mill are guests on “Troubleman,” but so are more pop-oriented collaborators, including Pink, Cee Lo Green and R. Kelly.

“The music he was making, you were not supposed to be able to sustain a musical career as long as this,” said Jermaine Hall, editor of Vibe magazine. “I don’t know if there’s anybody else who has come from that genre who can still make trap music” — the bruising style of T. I.’s past efforts — “but also make the big Top 40 record the way that T. I. can.”

After the Joy Behar show he climbed in a waiting van, emerging at a recording studio further downtown, where he was interviewed by the HOT 97 radio host Angie Martinez. His new record, he explained to Ms. Martinez, was in part an attempt to describe “my world as I envision it if I never became T. I.”

But there are also pointed re-enactments on “Troubleman” of real-life events, among them T. I.’s ill-conceived attempt to buy assault weapons from a federal informant and a visceral restaging of the 2006 shooting death of his close friend Philant Johnson.

The skits, he said, were there to correct the impression that he had made his mistakes out of ignorance, rather than a regrettable combination of bad luck and worse judgment. “I’m a considerably intellectual person,” T. I. said. “So for people to kick it like they thought I was just dumb, it’s like, ‘Come on, man.’ You got to know there’s more to it. I’m not an idiot.”

“Although,” he ruefully added, “I did make an idiot play.”

The two prison terms cost T. I. more than his freedom. “Takers,” the 2010 crime thriller that he starred in, came out the week of his second arrest, for a probation violation relating to drug charges. He lost endorsement deals with Rémy Martin, Axe and Chevrolet. “It was really bad for business,” said Brian Sher, founder of Category 5 Entertainment and a manager for T. I.’s nonmusical ventures.

Rap stardom is an ephemeral thing. It tends not to last. “Traditionally for hip-hop we’ve never seen someone be an adult, be relevant and successful before,” said Jason Geter, T. I.’s friend and another manager. Fatigue sets in, trends change, audiences move on. This summer T. I. told a radio station he was contemplating retirement. “This is what everyone fails to realize,” he said. “I want out.”

In retrospect it was a premature statement, T. I. said, though he meant it at the time. “When I was just coming out of prison, seeing all the things around me that had changed drastically,” T. I. said, he lost interest in continuing. “And once you have put yourself in a position where you can take advantage of other opportunities, like I could focus 100 percent on movies, and I’d be straight. And it would be less aggravation on a daily basis.”

His previous record, “No Mercy,” had been a disappointment. He’d become tabloid fodder because of his prison stints, which stung. There was an increasing gulf between his private life as a family man and public life as a careless recidivist. The question was whether music was still a world that T. I. wanted to be a part of.

“For T. I. I think the challenge is,” Mr. Geter said, rap is “where you’ve come from. And now it’s time to graduate and move on.”

“Troubleman,” with its delicate mix of tough talk and songs about fatherhood, marriage and regret, is T. I.’s attempt to do just that, he said. The day before he had been in Detroit, giving away toys with the Lions star Ndamukong Suh. The next day he would head to Baltimore and then home, to Atlanta. He had a good feeling about “Troubleman,” he said, adding that he felt as if he had another few records in him. But “it is time to begin to pull the plug of the exit strategy.”

He leaned back in his seat. “I’m not going to be doing this in 10 years, I can tell you that now,” he said. “If you see me up here at 40, something happened.”