B.o.B American Rapper and Singer Born 1988 in Winston-Salem

Early life

Bobby Ray Simmons Jr., who records as B.o.B, was born on 15 November 1988 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and was raised in Decatur, Georgia. He played trumpet in his school band from elementary school onward. By sixth grade he had decided on a career in music. His father was a pastor who at first disapproved of that choice, and his parents later helped him with early equipment, including a first keyboard for making beats. He attended Columbia High School in Decatur, where he played in the band, but he left school in the ninth grade.

In 2002 he met a mentor and co-manager, B-Rich, and sold his first beat to the artist Citti. In 2006, as a teenager, he performed a song called "Cloud 9" at an Atlanta club owned by the rapper T.I., where the producer T.J. Chapman heard him and agreed to co-manage him. Within a month he had signed to Atlantic Records and its imprint Rebel Rock, run by the producer Jim Jonsin.

Career

His first single for Atlantic, "Haterz Everywhere", came out in 2007 and reached number five on Billboard's Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart. He followed it with "I'll Be in the Sky" in 2008. Between 2007 and 2008 he released four mixtapes and two extended plays, and he was featured on T.I.'s 2008 album Paper Trail. He joined T.I.'s Grand Hustle Records in a joint venture in 2008, appeared on the cover of XXL as part of its 2009 Freshman Class, and wrote an original song for the video game Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned. He also belongs to the production and rap group HamSquad. In his early work he divided his output between two personas, B.o.B for pop, trap and club songs and Bobby Ray for more personal, instrument-led material, an idea he explored on the 2009 mixtape B.o.B vs. Bobby Ray.

His breakthrough came with "Nothin' on You", featuring Bruno Mars, which topped the Billboard Hot 100. "Airplanes", with Hayley Williams of Paramore, reached number two, and "Magic", with Rivers Cuomo, reached number ten. His debut studio album, B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray, was released on 27 April 2010. It opened at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 84,000 copies and was later certified double platinum. MTV ranked him ninth on its list of the Hottest MCs in the Game of 2010. In 2011 he was the guest on Jessie J's "Price Tag", a UK number one.

His second album, Strange Clouds, appeared on 1 May 2012 and entered the Billboard 200 at number five. It produced the singles "So Good" and "Both of Us", the latter featuring Taylor Swift. In December 2013 he released Underground Luxury, which took a darker tone and debuted at number 22. The same year he appeared on "Paranoid" by Ty Dolla Sign and "Up Down (Do This All Day)" by T-Pain, and in 2014 he launched his own label imprint, No Genre, and put out the mixtape No Genre 2 and the single "Not for Long".

In 2015 he issued Psycadelik Thoughtz as his last project for Atlantic, after stating publicly that the label was not promoting his work. He then worked through No Genre with Empire Distribution. In 2016 he released a run of mixtapes titled after the elements, which were collected as the compilation album Elements, and in May 2017 he put out his first independent studio album, Ether. Naga followed in July 2018, and Southmatic in 2019. Later releases include Somnia in 2020, the compilation Lost Tapes in 2021, and further albums in 2022, 2023 and 2024. In the records he is listed with 11 albums and 24 singles between 2010 and 2019, working in southern hip-hop and alternative hip-hop, and he plays the guitar.

Recognition

"Nothin' on You" received three nominations at the 53rd Grammy Awards, for Record of the Year, Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. He has also been nominated for awards from BET, the Teen Choice Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards. He performed at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards with Bruno Mars and Hayley Williams, and in 2010 he supported Paramore on a UK tour and opened for Eminem and Jay-Z on The Home and Home Tour.