It's been hard to avoid the music of rapper T.I. over the last year, with his No. 1 hits "Whatever You Like" and "Live Your Life" blaring from nightclubs, iPod headphones and car stereos everywhere.
But starting Tuesday night on MTV, the hip-hop star will try out a new role as a sort of celebrity guardian angel who tries to scare kids straight.
In the reality series "T.I.'s Road to Redemption," young people who'd usually be described as "at-risk" -- troubled backgrounds, limited prospects, bad attitude -- get a surprise visit from the rapper, who favors a carrot-and-stick approach to behavior modification.
In the premiere, an Atlanta street hustler with vague aspirations of becoming an actor gets a crash course in "Romeo and Juliet." But to drive home the point, T.I. also guides him to the basement of a local funeral home, where an attendant has laid out the corpse of another young hood whose luck ran in the opposite direction.
"I think my reputation kind of speaks for itself," T.I., who goes by the nickname Tip and whose real name is Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., said in Hollywood last week.
Referring to the eight kids chosen for the show, he said, "They know I'm not speaking just from hearsay; I speak from experience. I've been through what they're going through, I've done all the things they're doing. And if they see I can make it to where I am, there surely is a possibility for them to make it to where they want to be."
If that all sounds a bit noble for TV, let alone for a rap star, your skepticism is excused. Trying to make the world a better place is not something the so-called celebreality TV trend is often accused of; it would be hard to make such an accusation with a straight face when contemplating titles such as "The Simple Life" with Paris Hilton and the truly twisted dating show "Flavor of Love" with the incomparable Flavor Flav.
But the producers behind "Road to Redemption" -- who, incidentally, were also behind "Flavor of Love" -- say the series is part of a genuine self-reinvention T.I. undertook after a major brush with the law threatened not just his career but his freedom.
In 2007, the rapper was arrested and charged with federal crimes including illegal possession of machine guns and silencers. As a previously convicted felon -- his rap sheet includes a series of busts for drug offenses and probation violations -- T.I. at one point faced up to 30 years in prison.
