Lists
15 Things you don’t know about B.o.B
- His real name is Bobby Ray Simmons, Jr.
- He is currently signed to TI’s Grand Hustle Records
- He quickly rose to fame after his debut single “Nothin’ on You”
- B.o.B was named the ninth Hottest MC in the Game of 2010 by MTV
- He played the trumpet in his school band from elementary school through high school
- Although his parents wanted him to continue his education, Simmons decided in sixth grade that he wanted to pursue a music career.His father, a pastor, disapproved of his son’s choices until he realized that Simmons was using music as a form of therapy and a creative outlet. Simmons later reflected on his experience, saying, “They’ve always supported me. They got my first keyboard to make beats on and they helped me out getting equipment here and there. But it was kind of hard for them to really understand what I was really trying to accomplish.”
- After meeting his mentor and co-manager, B. Rich, in 2002 at 14 years of age, B.o.B sold his first beat to former Slip-n-Slide recording artist Citti for a song titled “I’m the Cookie Man”. Meanwhile B.o.B felt he had made it: “I went and blew all of my money on fast stuff like a chain and ballin’. Soon I was broke again, but I learned two important things from it; make sure I save my money and that I was hooked on music.”
- In 2006, because he was underage, B. Rich helped sneak B.o.B into Club Crucial, a night club owned by Atlanta rapper T.I. There, B.o.B performed a song titled “Cloud 9”.
- B.o.B was included in XXL‘s 2009 annual Freshman Class
- In the summer of 2011 B.o.B was announced the new face of T.I.’s clothing line A.K.O.O
- T.I. and B.o.B are working on a collaborative album titled The Man & The Martian
- In 2012 in an interview with PopCush, B.o.B expressed his desire to work with Kid Cudi, James Blake and Skrillex: “I would also like to work with James Blake. That’d be crazy. I think me, James Blake and Kid Cudi should do a song and it should be produced by Skrillex. I think the sky would fall if we did that song and the sky would come down to Earth and party with us.”
- He is a six-time Grammy nominated rapper/songwriter
- In just six years, B.o.B has gone from earning stripes to having stripes by means of a national Adidias endorsement campaign, along with being recognized by every award show from the American Music Awards and Grammys, to the BET Awards and NAACP Image Awards.
- He has described his influences as “80′s music, techno, rock, funk, even doo-wop…”
