T-Pain Thankful For Jay-Z's "D.O.A.?"

T-Pain may have slipped out of the spotlight over the last couple of years, and some have blamed Jay-Z's 2009 hit "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" with slowing the digital crooner's momentum. T-Pain made the voice-altering technology famous, but he says that by dissing Auto-Tune, Jay actually helped Pain's career.

"The crazy thing is, and a lot of people don't see it like this, but if you really look at it, he made me famous," he explained. "A lot of people see this as a bad thing, but it only made me more famous because no one knew who he was talking about. If I can be in Jay-Z's category at the end of the day, I am fantastic. I love it." When he ran into Jay after the song's release, there was no beef. "That whole thing was stupid," he said. "He's Jay-Z, he's got probably more power than anybody in the industry right now and I'm me, so nothing's gonna change. I make smashes, he make money, nothing's gonna change."