TI - he's like a latter day Dostoevsky

Because his contract (or, possibly, need for some cash) forced TI to continue making his MTV reality series even while he was being measured up for a suit with arrows on, the rapper-turned-gunman was in a unique place to share his views on crime, and punishment and all that sort of stuff.

Share with us, TI:

"Some things in the past that I got involved with and got myself into just weren't worth my time; it didn't involve me," Tip explained. "If I'm here [he puts his hand above his head], and I'm involving myself with something down there [he puts his hand by his waist], it's just not worth my time. The energy and the effort and the thought and the time I put in it is useless."

Aha. So it's not that he shouldn't mess around with guns because it's wrong, or illegal, or anything old-fashioned like that. It's because it's a waste of his time.

It's not entirely clear why TI sees anything below waist-level as being a waste of time - perhaps he was just thinking of those long, lonely nights on Block D; or maybe he's just trying to not get involved in a massive paddy that Kanye West got to design some terrible sneakers.

The MTV series he's been making has been some poorly-thought-out attempt to teach being good to what we're apparently supposed to call "the Road To Redemption kids" - think The Mickey Mouse Gang if they'd been brought up the Beagle Boys instead.

What message, TI, do you want to give to those kids?

"In speaking to them and checking up on them and speaking to the people who are around them every day, I get the understanding that they're different people than they were before we did the show," T.I. said. "That they think about what they do before they do it. And even if they choose to do the wrong thing ... at least now, they have a conscience. Before they didn't even think about it. They didn't feel bad about it. At least now if they do something wrong, they feel something. I think it started something. It's not the end all, be all, but I think it inspired and promoted change, and I think that's what it was there to do."

TI is only one convicted felon, he can't be expected to do it all, can he? He can't pretend to have the end all, be all simply because MTV have given him a show about things.

At least the people throwing rocks through your windows now feel something when they do it. TI has done that. Before, they'd just feel cold and empty. And they'll think before they push over your nan and steal her shopping. If nothing else, TI has made sure that their crimes will not occur spontaneously, but after a period of reflection. We must all the thankful to TI.