As if we all didn’t get scooted off to college with enough disillusioned mama’s-little-scholar, small-town-star ego to begin with ­- AP-inflated GPA and all – a college campus serves as the ultimate rearing ground for sloppy grown-up snobs. If useless tidbits of gen-ed trivia aren’t enough to pump our ballooning heads with sufficiently impairing puffs of airy pride, we begin to realize – as we should – that there are now tens of thousands of little baby geniuses just like us, with roughly identical credentials (and that’s just within walking distance). Our egos now revert to an emergency state of auto-inflate. In case you’re still feigning ignorance, let me elaborate: Your body – as a defense mechanism, I suppose – convinces itself that it is in fact better than all those other faux-smart people (or should I say inferior blobs) blocking your purposeful path every day, and that its mere state of being is enough to prove inarguable superiority. In other words, those recurring sinus infections and constantly bruised shins could have something to do with the smug back-tilt your skull has adopted as a permanent resting place. Not to mention those bothersome cramps in the (stiff) upper-lip area.

Naturally, one of the foremost steps in defending this ego is to adopt an extensive, alphabetical list of bands that smooth down any self-conscious flare-ups with 1: enough virtuosic artistry to forever fodder ponderous strokes of your chin-hair, and two: adequate obscurity, to flaunt your ability to surf the Web and memorize a jumble of proper nouns and corresponding adjectives. Oh, and maybe some pretty awesome music to curdle your indie-starved blood – but that’s beside the point. The point is, you’re most likely not spending enough time making sure you’re happy with all this. If you’re the type to break out the Akon, Nelly Furtado or Justin Timberlake after one shot – the “”shitty hip-hop,”” as you’ll call it once you’ve sobered up and blamed the choice on alcoholic irrationality – you still have the chance to shed the stratospheric ego and come to terms with the fact that you fucking love it.

All right, I’m here. At the point. T.I. is coming to fucking Sun God. So let’s hop up off our inflated collegiate asses and admit to ourselves that yes, he’s uncomplicated, he’s Top 40, and he’s absolutely wonderful.