Between fame and infamy, lay a day.

Saturday, T.I. was at the pinnacle of his career, the Michael Vick of the rap game.

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T.I. was the co-winner of Saturday night's first award, for CD of the year.

MORE ON T.I. • Video: Red carpet reaction • Photos of performer • Read complaint affidavit (PDF) • Explainer: The weapons • TOPIC T.I. and Atlanta

He'd risen from a hard-scrabble beginning in Bankhead and survived his early crack-dealing days to become a Grammy-winning artist whose last two CDs debuted at the top of the charts.

He'd parlayed his success into a record label, and this fall, was planning to launch a fashion line, create a network sitcom, and appear in "American Gangster" with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, in his highest-profile movie role to date.

Yet on Sunday, T.I. — whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr. — sat in the Atlanta City Jail, snagged like Vick, the disgraced Falcons quarterback, by federal authorities. In Harris' case, he was caught in a sting in which authorities said he tried to illegally buy machine guns.

It is a serious crime with potentially serious jail time, compounded by the fact that Harris, a convicted felon, cannot own any firearms -- let alone the ones that the feds accuse him of buying, or the three they allegedly found in his car, or the ones they say were tucked in his bedroom safe that used a fingerprint scan for access.

Saturday, a few hours before the BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta bestowed upon him the "Best CD of the Year" award, Harris, 27, might also have earned himself up to 10 years in federal prison. His first court appearance on the weapons charges is Monday afternoon.

T.I.'s initial court appearance will be at 3 p.m. Monday before Magistrate Judge Alan Baverman at the federal courthouse in Atlanta.

"We'll go in [Monday], request bail on his behalf and vigorously defend him," said attorney Dwight Thomas, who with Steve Sadow is representing Harris.

Thomas would not comment on what Harris had to say about the charges when the two met at the jail.

"I can tell you he's in good spirits," the lawyer said. "He's confident the legal system will work in his favor."

'Gangsta fairy tale'

Harris is an artist of intriguing contrasts.

Like many hip-hop artists who maintain a hard-core image, he rarely cracks a smile. Yet at home, he bakes biscuits for his kids.

Under his moniker T.I., he adopts a persona of a smooth ladies man. But on his new CD "T.I. vs. T.I.P.," he battles another guy in his head, who boasts about his impoverished beginnings and glorifies a "gangsta" lifestyle.

Scholar Michael Eric Dyson — in town Sunday for a speech by minister Louis Farrakhan that took aim at the violence, sexism and greed openly rapped about and portrayed in music videos — said gangster culture is not just part of the rap music scene.

It's been part of American mythology from the beginning and could be seen in cowboy movies where John Wayne can kill dozens, to the forthcoming "American Gangster." But that fact that it happens to and among young men with black faces disproportionately draws the attention of the media and white America, Dyson said.

"What we often forget is that the troubled lives that these young men rap about is the troubled lives that they live," he said.

At the spirited, pre-scheduled speech at Justin's restaurant on Peachtree Street, Farrakhan said, "As long as you stay in funk and filth, this is going to turn on you."

Hip-hop icon Chuck D, who also attended, said that hip-hop often portrays a "gangsta fairy tale" without talking about the repercussions.

Algrin Davis, also known as DJ Toomp, who produced many of T.I.'s songs, said he tried to warn the rapper — 10 years his junior — about hanging with the wrong crowd and the consequences that could bring.

"I was in his ear all the time," Davis said.

Harris has had several brushes with the law — and a close one with death.

In June 2004, while serving time in Cobb County jail for violating probation on a drug conviction, Harris used his work-release program pass to shoot a video in the "SuperMax" units atop the Fulton County jail with eight prisoners and a few guards. In the ensuing controversy, the jail supervisor was fired.

The drug conviction stemmed from a November 1997 arrest; he served part of his sentence and was released on probation.

In May 2006, Harris narrowly escaped unhurt in a 3 a.m. shootout between his entourage and unidentified locals on a highway near Cincinnati. The gun battle, which might have carried over from an earlier squabble at a nightclub, took the life of his assistant and boyhood friend Philant Johnson, 26. The killers remain at large.

It wasn't surprising then, speculated Cali Barbour of Atlanta as she ate breakfast at Atlantic Station onn Sunday, that Harris wanted guns. "I think maybe it was for protection purposes," she said.

Blue light special

"... I got a hundred goons wit' me/ Dressed in black/ Fifty at the front door, fifty at the back," Harris snarls in "Hurt," a song off his latest CD. "Half got K's [AK-47], half got macs [a brand of machine guns]/ Bring 'em out, bring 'em out."

Authorities said Harris paid his bodyguard $12,000. The man then purchased three 9-mm machine guns and two 9-mm silences from an undercover agent at a K-mart store lot.

When federal agents arrested the bodyguard, he allegedly told them the guns were for Harris, and that he'd purchased about 25 firearms for his boss in the last year and a half. He agreed to cooperate with authorities.

Harris linked up with his bodyguard Saturday afternoon in a shopping center parking lot in midtown Atlanta. Authorities said the musician arrived in a car with three firearms, including one tucked between the driver's seat and the center console.

When the bodyguard explained the function of one silencer, Harris allegedly said, "No flash, no bang." He also asked for "change left over" from the $12,000, according to the criminal complaint. Agents then moved in and arrested Harris without incident.

"Machine guns with silencers are not illegal weapons per se. But you need permission to own them," Special Agent Marc Jackson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives explained Sunday. "It has to get vetted through a law enforcement agency, there's a criminal background check, and they need to pay a tax."

Officials also took into custody Harris' longtime on-and-off girlfriend, Tameka "Tiny" Cottle, and rappers Mac Boney and Young Dro, said witness Hassan Musaddiq, a camera man for the Atlanta public access hip hop show "Severe Entertainment."

Cottle — part of Atlanta-based, all-female R&B group Xscape, which scored several hits in the mid to late 1990s — was charged by Atlanta police with possession of marijuana and the drug Ecstasy.

She and Harris have a son named King together. Earlier this year, Harris, a father of five, and Cottle lost the daughter they were expecting when she miscarried.

Young Dro and Mac Boney are part of a group on T.I.'s Atlanta-based Grand Hustle label, called P$C. They were not charged with any crimes.

Young Dro, asked Sunday whether he was with T.I. at the time of his arrest, said, "Of course I was." But he didn't want to talk about the incident.

"We're going to be all right," he said. "It's just a mistake. Everybody's entitled to some. We'll be OK."

Thomas, the attorney, said that a couple of bodyguards who were with Harris also were taken into custody but were not charged.

Later Saturday, agents searched Harris' College Park home and found three rifles, two pistols and a revolver. Five of the firearms were loaded.

Sunday, Harris' family members did not want to talk, and his record label publicist Sydney Margetson had no comment on the arrest.

"We've just got to roll with the punches," said Jason Geter, who founded Grand Hustle with Harris four years ago. "We always do. I'm very hopeful."

— Staff writers Sonia Murray and Steve Visser and news researcher Richard Hallman contributed to this report.