Will T.I.'s Career Suffer After a Year in Prison?

As a result of pleading guilty on federal weapons charges, T.I. faces up to a year in prison; he also must complete at least 1,000 hours of community service. As a result, many are curious as to the impact this will have on the rappers career.

Experts weighed in on the matter to MTV News.

According to Chaz Williams, CEO of Black Hand Entertainment (and manager of Foxy Brown), T.I. might not fall so badly. "It's bad for an artist to be taken away from their career for any amount of time, whether it's through sickness or any other unfortunate circumstance," said Williams. "The difference is that some artists are 'padded' better than others, depending on what level of their career they're at."

Williams continued, "If I was in T.I.'s shoes, I would probably record an album and put it out in the fourth quarter [of 2008]...Do some remixes and get an EP and several videos done, so I have enough stuff to fuel my career at a certain level until I get out."

T.I.'s situation is in stark contrast to that of Foxy and Remy Ma. Foxy's career was already at a standstill before she hit prison, and Remy was unable to prepare for her prison time. T.I., on the other hand, is free to "perform, act in movies [and] carry on with his business until the end of the 12-month period" before his prison sentence, according to one of his attorneys, Ed Garland.

"I don't want to say it happened at a good time in his career, because there's never a good time to go to prison, but he has established himself with that mystique of his problems in the past, and it's part of who he is," added Williams.

Attorney Stacey Richman, who has defended Lil Wayne, DMX, Busta Rhymes and Ja Rule on criminal charges said that rappers can ease the impact of a prison sentence by ensuring that their affairs are in order before they're locked up. She also said that, in some cases, going to prison is a boost.

"Look at Martha Stewart; [going to prison] was the greatest thing that ever happened to her," said Richman of the domestic icon. "It opened her up to markets that she would never have reached before. As much as the government wants to appear to be cracking down, they take the risk of glorifying someone who they're trying to make an example of."