MTV’s new reality series T.I.’s Road to Redemption: 45 Days to Go is not just the story of one man’s determination to make up for past wrongs. Premiering tonight at 9 p.m., it’s about the choices we make, the consequences and the ability to turn your life around.
Rapper T.I. was arrested on federal gun charges and made a deal with the federal court to complete 1,000 hours of community service prior to final sentencing. In exchange, he would be looking at only a little over a year of prison time, versus 30 years.
T.I. knows he screwed up and says so quite frequently in the interview segments of the show. But it’s his subsequent choices that interest me. While he has been active in trying to get kids off the streets and back in school, he chooses to intervene directly in the lives of seven at-risk kids to try to convince them to stop hustling and start studying.
The seven kids are already getting into pretty serious trouble. In the premiere episode, PeeWee is hustling drugs to get money for his mother. His father is dead, his mother is an addict. So it’s no wonder the kid turned to drug sales to keep him and his family afloat.
While T.I. does understand the kid’s need to hustle and where he’s coming from, he doesn’t condone the activity and goes to some pretty intense lengths to convince PeeWee that he stands a better chance of helping his family if he stops hustling and gets an education.
There is plenty of bleeped language. And while you don’t see the violence, it is an ever-present threat. In fact, one of the ways T.I. uses to work on PeeWee is taking him to a mortuary where another hustler is being laid out in his coffin.
In short, the show is raw and not for very young kids. But it does send a message about choosing to clean up your life when you realize you’ve messed up. I’ve got to give T.I. a lot of credit for manning up and admitting he screwed up big time, and then going out and trying to keep other kids from making his mistakes.
So is T.I. a danger to society? Hardly. And, in fact, when he does come before the judge at the end of March this year, I do hope that his community service is taken into full account and that he doesn’t do any prison time at all. After all, what can he do in prison that will be anywhere near as effective as what he’s doing now?
So watch with your kids and see what they have to say. Do they believe T.I.’s conversion? What have they done that they’d like to reverse? Does T.I. belong in prison? What is redemption, anyway?
Anne Louise Bannon
Your Family Viewer
