King

The cover of King is a portrait of T.I., photographed by Christian Lantry, with art direction and design by Greg Gigendad Burke and further design by Sean Donnelly. Robert Gold produced the shoot. It was T.I.'s fourth album and his biggest release yet on Grand Hustle and Atlantic, and the sleeve treats the occasion as a coronation, with the one-word title doing most of the talking.

The word had history. Five years earlier, when his debut was selling modestly, T.I. had declared himself the "King of the South", a claim that was bold for a rapper with no hits to his name. By 2006 the hits had caught up with the boast, and the cover states it plainly. There is no throne room or crown jewels in the title, just the name of the office and the face of the man who claimed it. The design keeps the attention on T.I. himself, with little to distract from the face and the title.

The album debuted at number one with more than 500,000 copies in its first week, the biggest debut of the year at that point, while his starring role in the film ATL opened in cinemas. XXL later wrote that by the end of the year he "wasn't just the king of the South, he was the king of rap." King was released on 28 March 2006.