After facing off against Tupac Shakur fans over his remarks about the late Rap icon, T-Pain is in the news for less controversial reasons. The autotune hitmaker has been finding success outside of the music industry thanks to gaming, even recently sharing that he makes more money on Twitch than in the studio. The lucrative business move was something he happened to stumble upon, and after seeing that his fans loved tuning in, it became his new cash cow.

When T-Pain chatted with AfroTech, he revisited a time in his career when he realized that he was broke and wasn’t aware that he didn’t have any money. “It was such a surprise. That one day where I was like, ‘Yeah, somebody just moved out of the house in front of me, I want to go buy that house.’ And someone on my team was like, ‘You ain’t got no money dude.’”

T-Pain
Nicholas Hunt / Staff / Getty Images

“I was like, ‘What?’ It was a surprise because I wasn’t watching [my money].” Now, Pain said he “always asks questions” about his cash and business moves, and he doesn’t hesitate to interject his opinions on deals. Branding has been an intricate part of his career including his Lipton Iced Tea partnership.

Pain also draws inspiration from his fellow Hip Hop peers who have established themselves independently in industries that aren’t directly related to entertainment.

“David Banner, Killer Mike, you know people that look like me that have done this on their own and succeeded, those are my biggest inspirations,” he said. “David Banner came from music, went to speaking, started his own production company and he just went down all these routes on his own. Those are the people I admire, especially if they look like me.”

[via]