T-Pain takes crown as king of ringtones

By Antony Bruno

DENVER (Billboard) - Enter most any dance club and odds are you'll soon hear "Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin')" by R&B sensation T-Pain before the night is through.

But the hit single gets most of its spins as a 30-second clip.

"Buy U a Drank" is the best-selling mastertone of 2007, according to Nielsen RingScan, moving more than 2.3 million units year to date. That figure nearly doubles the very respectable 1.6 million digital downloads the same track has sold, according to Nielsen SoundScan, and completely dwarfs the 686,000 CDs that the album it supports -- "Epiphany" -- has moved since its debut June 23.

For the Jive Records artist, this is a familiar story. His first album, "Rappa Ternt Sanga," sold 597,000 copies on the strength of the hit single "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)." According to the label, the song sold more than 5 million ringtones, 4 million of them in less than five months -- making it the fastest-selling ringtone in Sony BMG history and earning it a 2006 BMI Urban Music Award as ringtone of the year.

It's something T-Pain himself can't explain.

"I don't concentrate on it," he said. "When I'm in the studio, I don't finish the song and say, 'That's going to be a big ringtone.' I don't know if a song is going to be a hit or it's going to flop. I never know. I just do the music and if people like it, they like it."

ESSENTIAL BUSINESS

The Southern soulster does give credit to ringtones -- in addition to a close relationship with hip-hop/R&B hitmaker Akon -- as a significant factor behind his success. In a May Billboard interview, T-Pain said it was his ringtone sales that forced his label to support his first album.