A dispatch from T.I.'s Christmas party

When the invitation landed in our email—hey, wanna go to T.I.’s Christmas party?—we thought about it for awhile and ultimately decided that, yes, we would attend in the name of journalism. You, the Paste reader, deserve to know what hors d’oeuvres were served, what the gift bags contained, what the superstar rapper born Clifford Harris Jr had to say for himself at the end of his eventful year. 

The shindig went down at the Mason Murer art gallery, a 24,000 square-foot space in an industrial swath of Atlanta. The walls were white, the floors were concrete, and we saw a giant painting of a horse that cost $60,000. On a table in the dining room were little black gift bags containing silk scarves, but the best giveaways were slim silver boxes that, when opened, turned out to be cigar holders on one side and flasks on the other—all your vices in one convenient holster.

Since this is the List of the Day blog, we will recount the rest of the event in a user-friendly numerical format.

Appetizers consumed

1. Beef Wellington in puff pastry
2. Chicken skewers with Vidalia onion vinaigrette
3. Olive tapenade on crostini

To wash it all down, the party helpfully provided a supply of free cocktails thanks to sponsor Domaine De Canton, a bizarre (but not unpleasant) libation that bills itself as a “French ginger liqueur with VSOP cognac.” Perhaps you never imagined that a streetwise rapper like T.I. would allow cocktails with edible hibiscus flower at his holiday party, but yes, it’s true. Also true: After soaking in a ruby-colored cocktail, hibiscus tastes like maraschino cherry. Journalism! Mencken was right—it really is the life of kings! 

Genres straddled by Gritz & Jelly Butter, the evening’s musical guest

1. Smooth jazz
2. Lite funk

In the abstract, G&JB were a surprising choice as the evening’s entertainment, but they made sense considering the grown-and-sexy vibe of the event. It was in an art gallery, after all. And it was Christmastime. Which also made it somehow appropriate that two of the rappers in the house showed up looking so darn preppy.

Grand Hustle artists we saw wearing the exact same shade of lemon-yellow sweater over a button-down shirt

1. Young Dro
2. Killer Mike

Eventually, T.I. arrived and met the press. He was not wearing yellow. He was wearing black. The noted roller-skating enthusiast had just gotten back from a trip to Cascade skating rink as part of a toy drive for local kids, and he said he’d be spending the next day giving away more goodies at his Bankhead nightspot Club Crucial. “I’m just doing as much as I can,” he said. “I’m doing it ’til I can’t do it no more.

Other revelations from T.I.’s mini press conference 

1. T.I. is a teetotaler. “I’m not a drinking man, honestly,” he said when we asked him if he was a cognac man. This was a little awkward, seeing as how he was standing in front of a Domaine De Canton logo banner. So we helped the guy out. “But if you were, you’d be drinking…Domaine De Canton.” “Absolutely!” he said. True to his word, Tip walked around the lobby carrying a red Starbucks cup featuring little white snowflakes.
2. T.I. considers former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young to be “a mentor.” Young (pictured above, with T.I.) worked with the rapper on Walking With Guns, a documentary released after T.I.’s guilty plea earlier this year on federal weapons possession charges. “He was gracious enough to get involved with me in a very [trying] time in my life," T.I. said. "And I’m proud to have him as a mentor and as an advisor. He’s definitely helped me to see things in a light that I wasn’t able to see them in before. I’ve benefited a lot from our relationship.” Shortly thereafter, Young himself arrived at the party and, when asked about his relationship with the rapper, said, “We don’t really have a relationship.” It was hard to tell whether he was joking. But then someone asked Young, “What impressed you most about working with T.I.,” and Young responded by saying “that he really is a nice guy,” which made everyone laugh. “No,” Young said, “that he really is genuinely extremely bright and a lot more sensitive than he lets on in the streets. But I also learned to respect his efforts to deal with a very rough and cruel world with a maximum amount of intelligence and integrity.” We asked Young what advice he’d given his young protégé. “Be cool,” Young said. We pressed: “You had to tell T.I. that?” “I had to tell him that. Don’t ever let anybody push your buttons. I told him what my daddy told me: ‘It’s a rough world out there, son, but don’t get mad—get smart.’”
3. T.I. has advice for the kids. “Learn from whatever mistake that put you in the situation you’re in. Don’t take the lesson lightly. Most people just go through the punishment, go through the tough times and never take time to sit back and acknowledge the lesson in the mistake that they made. Me personally, I’ve had enough time to learn the many, many lessons in my many mistakes."
4. T.I. has a New Year’s resolution. “Be better next year than I was last year.”