Once dubbed "the Jay-Z of the South" by Pharrell Williams, T.I. gradually came into his own and established himself as one of rap's greatest and most successful MCs during the early 2000s. Like Jay-Z, T.I. -- born Clifford Harris in Atlanta, GA -- has always carried a balance of smoothness and toughness, and though 2001's I'm Serious (released on Arista) didn't shoot him out of the gate à la Reasonable Doubt, he consistently grew and began a string of major hits with 2003's "24's." From that point through 2007, there wasn't any point when T.I. couldn't be heard within a couple hours on any given urban radio station throughout the U.S.