About 20 minutes down, still about 1,000 hours to go.

That's the count now after Atlanta rapper T.I. spoke to Stockbridge High School students Friday afternoon; part of a deal he arranged after pleading guilty to weapons charges last week.

Joey Ivansco/AJC (ENLARGE)

Atlanta rapper T.I. speaks to students Friday at Stockbridge High School in Henry County.

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"If any of you know me, you know I'm (gonna) keep it real ... I don't laugh if it ain't funny. I don't scratch if I don't itch. If helping you guys wasn't something that was a passion of mine — and really something on my heart — I wouldn't be here," he told a gymnasium full of 10th and 11th graders who were surprised by the visit.

"... Hopefully the mistakes I've made can come across to you. And you can see where I went wrong, so you don't have to go down the same road."

The Henry County chapter of the NAACP invited T.I. to make the speech there and coordinated the visit with the Stockbridge High School principal.

The U.S. Attorney's Office made a plea deal with the enormously popular Atlanta rapper that gave him a reduced prison sentence but required he spend at least 1,000 hours over the next year preaching nonviolence to "at-risk youth."

T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., pleaded guilty to three firearms violations charges. Under the advisory federal sentencing guidelines, Harris faced between four years and nine months and five years and 11 months in prison. Instead, when he is sentenced in March 2009, he will be ordered to spend a year and a day in prison as long as he fulfills the obligations of his community service and stays out of trouble.

On March 29, less than 24 hours after the highly publicized plea, attorneys for T.I. said requests for the rapper to speak began rolling in.