That artist was T-Pain, with his hit single “I’m ‘n Luv (wit a Stripper)”, released in late 2005. It was a very similar effect to Cher’s in 1998, however, T-Pain managed to take that same effect and bring it to the rap world, where he gained many creative allies (Reynolds). Initially, his use of Auto-Tune confused the public more than anything else, as Kramer writes, “while people enjoyed his vocal effects, they didn't necessarily know what to make of them, assuming it was some sort of vocoder trickery and wondering when he'd get bored of the gimmick” (Kramer). As T-Pain continued releasing songs through the next few years, his rise highlighted the beginning of the negative public perception of Auto-Tune, as “his constant reliance on [the software] … prompted suggestions that he lacked talent or that his music was one-dimensional. A backlash was building, but as T-Pain kept churning out chart-topping singles, the whole music industry started paying attention” (Kramer). T-Pain’s fame also became the vehicle for Auto-Tune to promote itself. Antares Audio reached out to T-Pain, and “the eventual result was the ‘I Am T-Pain’ app released [in 2009]. The revenue from selling the app isn't very important-‘a lot of fingers in that pie,’ [Marketing VP for Antares Marco Alpert] said-but the promotional value is considerable” (Ives). Whether or not the public was on T-Pain’s side, he certainly made Auto-Tune much more well-known and popular, and this “obvious” usage of the software began to become much more common in hip-hop, contrasting the “subtle” usage in pop.