T-Pain has unearthed some super-rare footage on par with digging up the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant.
The Florida singer found video of the exact moment in 2008 when he decided to rhyme “mansion” with “Wisconsin” while he was in the booth recording his hit song “Can’t Believe It” featuring Lil Wayne, which peaked at No. 7 on the Hot 100.
He posted the special moment on X and in the video he can be heard asking his engineer if that’s how Wisconsin natives pronounce the name of their home state as he tries to mimic the kind of broad, nasally midwestern accent that one would hear on a TV show like Fargo.
“I can put you in a log cabin, somewhere in Aspen/ Girl, it ain’t nothin’ to the Pain/ I got what you askin’ for/ Put you in a mansion, somewhere in Wiscansin,” he sings into the microphone before stopping to ask if he’s pronouncing Wisconsin right. “That’s how they say it, ain’t it? Wiscansin? Do they say Wiscansin? I think Wisconsin people say Wiscansin.”
In 2023, the rapper/singer spoke to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and talked about the birth of that immortal couplet. “I could have done a lot of different things,” he told the paper. “But man, ‘Wiscansin’ just felt right. It felt better. It felt like I was taking a risk. Not a lot of people give Wisconsin a lot of love, so I felt like I was breathing air into something.”
That specific bar has since become somewhat of a trademark for T-Pain and he’s capitalized on it. He’s released merch based around the phrase and even has an annual “Wiscansin Fest” in Milwaukee. This year, the festival kicks off on June 14.
Check out the found footage of Pain’s “Wiscansin” moment below.