walking upstream…
B.o.B
In a London hotel in July 2010, 21-year-old Bobby Ray Simmons Jr. rearranged glasses of water on a table to explain his career. "This is the gateway," he told the Guardian, tracing the straight path most rappers take around a detour of his own devising. Born in North Carolina and raised near Atlanta, the son of a preacher who sang in church before he ever rapped, he picked up trumpet, then piano, then guitar, and took his stage name from a song title by hometown giants OutKast. Three years of mixtapes and a deal with T.I.'s Grand Hustle led to "Nothin' on You" and "Airplanes," turning B.o.B into a rapper who sang his choruses and meant them — the tension between going his own way and following the format still defines him.
the sound in question
2010
Nothin' on YouB.o.B
walk the tributaries ↓
OutKast1990s–2000s · Southern hip hop / Funk / Psychedelic hip hop
B.o.B's stage name is itself a debt: as a teenager outside Atlanta he lifted his rap acronym from the title of an OutKast song, a fact the Guardian traced back in 2010. Asked what shaped his open-genre ear, he has named OutKast first, ahead of Björk and Gnarls Barkley. The relationship became literal on 2012's "Strange Clouds," when OutKast's André 3000 guested on "Play the Guitar." "For me, it's like a pass-the-torch moment, like passing the baton off," B.o.B told BET. "Now I gotta take it around the track."
listen: upstream & heresource: The Guardian — B.o.B ↗
2003
Hey Ya!OutKast
2012
Play the GuitarB.o.B
listen for"Hey Ya!" runs on André 3000's restless, syllable-stretching cadence, the ad-libs and sudden gear-shifts that never let the beat sit still. "Play the Guitar," built from a chopped Bo Diddley sample into a club-driven beat, brings that same voice back as a guest: André's verse arrives after B.o.B's, and he closes the song with an unbilled guitar solo, literally picking up the instrument B.o.B named in the hook.
Eminem2000s–10s · Hip-hop / Hardcore hip-hop
B.o.B was a teenage devotee before he was a labelmate. "I was a huge Eminem fan," he told HipHopDX in 2012, naming him alongside DMX and Dr. Dre as the artists he chased outside Atlanta's own sound. The fandom turned into a duet on the closer of his 2010 debut, when Eminem took the final verse of "Airplanes, Pt. II," a performance the Guardian called probably his best since "Lose Yourself." B.o.B heard more than a guest spot in it. "I feel like the story's similar, in terms of the passion," he said of Eminem's verse. "I really relate to him."
listen: upstream & heresource: The Guardian — B.o.B ↗
2002
Lose YourselfEminem
2010
Airplanes, Pt. IIB.o.B
listen for"Lose Yourself" builds through tightening internal rhyme and a chorus that never gets to breathe before the next verse crashes back in — the sound of someone who says he only has one shot. On "Airplanes, Pt. II," Eminem brings that same stacked, breathless urgency to a much quieter setting, rapping over the song's wistful, sung wish-on-a-shooting-star hook and turning B.o.B's radio ballad into the same kind of confession, just at lower volume.
Coldplay2000s · Alternative rock / Pop rock / Post-Britpop
Asked in 2009 how he got so genre-agnostic, B.o.B named Coldplay in one breath with Foo Fighters and My Chemical Romance, rock bands sitting alongside OutKast and Björk on his list of formative artists. "I've always been led to the right musicians who inspired me the right way at the right amount of time," he told Clayton Perry. It's a single sentence, not a running theme, and no interview ties a specific Coldplay song to a specific B.o.B one — the debt reads more in ambition than method, a rapper willing to let a piano and a swelling chorus carry a whole song.
listen: upstream & heresource: Clayton Perry's Interview Exclusives — Interview ↗
2005
Fix YouColdplay
2010
Don't Let Me FallB.o.B
listen for"Fix You" opens on a single held chord and a hushed verse before Chris Martin's voice cracks open into a stadium-sized wall of guitar and drums by the final chorus. "Don't Let Me Fall" opens B.o.B's own debut the same way: a spare piano figure and a pleading verse that keeps building, adding drums and strings until the hook carries the same arena-sized swell, just rapped and sung by one artist instead of a full band.