By Rudy West
Rapper T.I. will turn his legal issues into an untitled reality series that will air on MTV in early 2009.
According to Variety, MTV will follow the Grammy Award winning Atlanta rapper as he performs 1,000 hours of community service and readies for a one-year prison sentence, for possession of unregistered machine guns and silencers.
MTV has already ordered eight episodes of the series, which is being produced by Ish Entertainment and executive produced by Grand Hustle’s Jason Geter and T.I. himself.
"We began the conversations in the middle of deliberations over what would happen to him," Ish's Michael Hirschorn told Variety. "The original idea for the show had him staging a series of interventions in each episode with people in danger. But when we visited him under house arrest, it felt much bigger and more powerful than we anticipated."
The show will also document T.I. as he finishes and released his highly anticipated new album Paper Trail, which is due in stores in August.
T.I., born Clifford Harris Jr., was arrested by agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives last October, just hours before a performance at the BET Hip-Hop Awards.
The rapper took a plea deal and was sentenced to a year in prison starting in 2009, fined $100,000 dollars and ordered to serve 1,000 hours of probation.