T.I. is responding to recent remarks from his son, Clifford Joseph “King” Harris III, who compared their real-life relationship to one of TV’s most notorious father-son storylines.
While speaking on Atlanta radio station V-103, the rap veteran and entrepreneur reacted to King likening their past tension to the dynamic between Ghost and Tariq St. Patrick from Starz’s hit series Power—a comparison that famously ends in tragedy.
“He trying to kill me. Oh, he’s trying to kill me,” T.I. joked initially, before shifting to a more reflective tone.
The Atlanta icon said he understood what King may have been getting at, suggesting the comparison was less literal and more about influence, legacy, and the unintended things parents pass down to their children.
“If he means that I passed down certain skills, tools, and perspectives through my DNA, by no intention of my own, then I guess he would have a point,” T.I. said. “As good of a father as Ghost tried to be, as much as he tried to divert young Tariq’s path, he still ended up catching that heat at the end.”
The remarks trace back to King’s appearance earlier this year on Reginae Carter’s Heir Time podcast, where the 21-year-old rapper compared his once-rocky relationship with his father to the power struggle between Ghost and Tariq.
King explained that although T.I. encouraged him to maintain a cleaner, more refined image, he often felt misunderstood in the process.
T.I., on the other hand, stressed that everything he’s done has come from a place of protection and wanting his son to grow. He said he’s spent years trying to show King different sides of who he is, both as a father and as a man dealing with life in the public eye.
“I think I’ve done the best I can to show King a different side of myself,” T.I. said. “But a lot of it is more caught than it is taught. He’s seen me in situations. He’s observed my actions.”
He also pointed out that there’s no handbook for fatherhood, especially when raising a child under constant scrutiny. According to T.I., some lessons don’t fully sink in until later, when life experience fills in the gaps words can’t.
King and T.I.’s relationship has been under public scrutiny for years, from viral family moments to interviews where King challenged perceptions about being raised with privilege. Since then, the two have made peace, and King appears to have matured, especially after becoming a father himself.
