Once upon a time, I was a music critic. Now, I’m a TV critic. You’d think, therefore, that I’d be chomping at the bit to attend a panel about a reality series focusing on a rapper. You would, however, be wrong. The truth of the matter is this: I do not give a flying flip about T.I., his music, or his new MTV series, “T.I.’s Road to Redemption: 45 Days to Go.”

But, hey, maybe you do…and if so, fair enough, then maybe you’ll want to watch it.

The premise…? T.I., who’s a convicted felon, is preparing for possible incarceration (on charges of possession of three unregistered machine guns and two silencers and possession of firearms by a convicted felon), and he’s determined to use his remaining days of freedom to be the catalyst for change, to intervene in the lives of various individuals who might be going down the wrong road and try and set them straight. It’s a form of community service, and I’m sure it’s all very well-intentioned in the grand scheme of things, but, you know, all I really wanted to know was this: why would someone with such a successful music career do something as stupid as try to buy machine guns?

Fortunately, someone else asked that very question.

“To put it in a few words, I made terrible choices due to a sense of paranoia and, you know, it was really just lack of thought,” said T.I.. “I wasn’t thinking as much as I ought to have been. I chose to do the wrong thing rather than to do the right thing. I think that the best thing that probably could have ever happened to me was to get caught because, you know, had I gotten away with it, I don’t know what other terrible choices I would have made afterward. So I think to have been able to face my terrible choices earlier on as possible was the best thing that could have happened for me.”

When asked if maybe he was getting a better break on his situation because of his status as a musical artist than somebody else who was not famous and didn’t have that sort of influence, T.I. first interrupted with a forceful “no,” then argued that it was actually more than one question being asked.

“I don’t think my status as a celebrity got me this blessing, as I described it,” he said. “I believe it’s my influence. If I was a celebrity with no influence to young people, who could not lead them in a positive direction, I would not have gotten this agreement. So I don’t think it’s my status as a celebrity. I think it’s my influence as a person. I think it’s the credibility of my life that I’ve lived, the things I have been able to get through, the things that I have witnessed, the things that I have learned from my mistakes, and also the previous community service that I had been doing even before. Even before 2007, I had been working diligently with the Boys and Girls Clubs, ‘It’s Cool To Be Smart.’ I have my own foundation, the King Foundation. We do tons of things for the inner city across America for Christmas, back-to-school, Mother’s Day. I have a list of things that I was doing even prior to this agreement and arrangement that I think put me in high regard to be considered for an arrangement like this.”

Kids, if you want to watch the show, have fun. But while I applaud T.I.’s attempts to turn his life around (even as I remain cynical over the fact that he’s doing it as a reality series) as well as to turn around the lives of others and keep them from making some of the mistakes he did, my ultimate thought is this: the guy was already famous when he did this very stupid thing, and, frankly, if he gets jail time, he’s more than earned it.

“T.I.’s Road to Redemption: 45 Days to Go” premieres Feb. 10 on MTV.