Originally published March 18, 2019.

T-Pain, known for his infamous auto-tuned voice and hip-hop/rap melodies, released a surprise follow-up studio album on Feb. 27th.

T-Pain recently made news when he won “The Masked Singer”, stumping the judges by singing without auto-tune. But that’s not all T-Pain had to offer.

After he released his fifth studio album, “Oblivion” back in 2017, we haven’t heard much from the old-school hip-hop artist. T-Pain is mostly known for pairing up with other rappers of the same genre and using auto-tune to enhance his music.

His sixth studio album “1UP” is considered a surprise because of the lack of previous announcement date by the singer. T-Pain took inspiration from his love of gaming and implemented it into his current music, hence the album title.

Fans were a bit surprised to see an album released by the singer a year after the release of his last one. “1UP” features a wide variety of guest artists, such as Tory Lanez, Lil’ Wayne, O.T. Genasis, among a few others.

The album starts with an upbeat track, self-titled after the album itself. The song list bounces from club hits to serious, mellowed-out heartbreak songs, and comes back to upbeat hits. His auto-tuned voice echoes throughout each one, and gives the listener a nostalgic feel to his music back in the early 2000’s.

Although T-Pain continues to keep his signature sound, sometimes fans wish they could get a wider variety out of Pain. While Pain continues to do what he knows best, fans can’t help but feel a bit disappointed with the curious tracks strewn throughout, such as a lighter, more upbeat track titled “It’s my Dog’s Birthday”.

T-Pain, while having about half of the album feel nostalgic and classic to his sound, some tracks simply do not match up to the rest, and simply begin to feel like fillers.

The first music video to accompany the new album comes from the second track, titled “Get’cha Roll On” with Fast and Furious-esque cars drifting around Pain as he sings. A few more music video’s have been released on Pain’s YouTube channel since.

Although T-Pain might’ve taken a small hiatus from the spotlight, he seems to plan on coming back better than ever, and doesn’t seem to want to slow down.

T-Pain’s new album “1UP” is available everywhere now.