By a show of hands, who here remembers 2010 fairly well? Alright, obviously a rhetorical question, but I assume many of us do. In 2010, I was but a young whippersnapper who had just begun to listen to some of the recent superstars in music; artists such as Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, etc. At the time, I didn’t enjoy a large majority of what I heard on the radio. To me it was all just bubblegum-pop garbage (although I did give my respect to Mr. West for Graduation three years previous). Everything was overly edited, played on repeat, and sounded relatively similar to a young boy in the front seat of a Volvo. But I do remember one obscure album that stood out to me amongst the rest; a glistening diamond in a very dark rough. “Which album could this possibly be?”, you may be pondering.
It was “B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray” by B.o.B.
Now I know what you’re thinking. A peculiar choice for my “Stand Out Album of 2010”, no? Well to me, this creation is legions more than that. This was my big foray into the hip hop genre, which I’ve been swimming laps in for the past six years or so (in this analogy, genres are pools. Just go with it.) After hearing songs like “Airplanes”, “Magic”, “Don’t Let Me Fall” and “Ghost In The Machine”, not only did I know that I loved B.o.B., but also that I had only gotten my feet wet with Graduation. It was time to dive into the water for real, and I may as well have done two somersaults in the air on the way down.
Since that time, I’ve become acquainted with many other essential musicians in the hip hop world (among my favorites are Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar). Each one is distinct and brings their own unique style to the table, leaving me impressed and bewildered every time. To think that without B.o.B., phrases such as “Because The Internet” and “To Pimp A Butterfly” could have remained completely foreign to me, even if my friends did try to convince me to listen to them. It’s a strange world we live in, I suppose.
I’ll occasionally go back and listen to “Bobby Ray” again, and it’s stood the test of time so far in my eyes. What I did find surprising was that upon its initial release, it received mixed reviews from many well-respected critics and websites. This could be due to the fact that many viewed it as a collection of collabs mixed in with more unpolished tracks, but honestly, I couldn’t care less. Although today, it seems as though B.o.B. may have gone off the deep end a bit with his theories that the Earth is, in fact, flat, let us not forget that time almost six years ago, when he was able to produce such beautiful sound.
