B.o.B. slid into the chair at 13 Roses Tattoo, extended his right arm and breathed in a little.
“It’s kinda therapeutic in a way,” he said, then paused and exhaled a laugh to indicate there’s more under the macho bravado. “But you still feel the needle!”
B.o.B., the Atlanta-raised rapper with a résumé boasting five Grammy nominations and six hits that have criss-crossed the pop, rap and R&B charts, has settled into a chair at the tattoo parlor in East Atlanta Village.
He has about 90 minutes before zipping to the airport with his two-man entourage to catch a flight to Chicago, where he was launching the promo tour for his just-released second album, “Strange Clouds,” but figured he’d pop in to see Mikey Slater, his trusted tattoo artist, to fill in an outline of an Indian headdress on his right bicep.
B.o.B. — born Bobby Ray Simmons Jr. in Winston-Salem, N.C. — is slight in black sweatpants, a white T-shirt and cocked baseball cap, and carries an aura of laid-back sweetness. He’ll answer anything he’s asked, often peppering his comments with a grin or laugh, except when unexpectedly shifting into serious mode.
“It’s a good thing I fell into music. I played football, basketball, baseball in high school and just found myself hanging out with the wrong people. Just the wrong crowd,” he said, his molasses-colored eyes narrowing. “Music kept me occupied, but I was just being a kid, being ignorant.”
He doesn’t elaborate on what type of ignorant behavior he might have indulged in during his time in the magnet program at Columbia High School in DeKalb County, which he left during senior year when the opportunity to travel to promote his music arrived.
But he doesn’t have to look back, because right now the career of the 23-year-old son of Karen and the Rev. Bobby Ray Simmons — a pastor at Holy Union Christian Church in Atlanta — has shifted into hyperdrive.
It seems like another lifetime ago that B.o.B. — his nickname bestowed by transplant Atlanta rapper Willie Joe one night outside a club — found a $20 bill on the ground at school and used it to buy DMX’s first album, 1998’s “It’s Dark and Hell is Hot.”
B.o.B. would practice rapping by writing out DMX’s lyrics on a sheet of paper, then hone his rapid-speech skills for hours. When he wasn’t reciting DMX’s words, he was crafting his own, sometimes in church, sitting in the pew while his father preached.
When he turned 13, a student at Henderson Middle School in Chamblee, B.o.B. determined that he would become a rapper.
“When you decide that’s what you want to do, it’s not the first thing you go and tell people because they’d be like, ‘Yeah, sure, right,’” he said.
He considers his older brother, Jamaal, his strongest sounding board, especially in his neophyte days.
“I’d sit there and rap for 45 minutes and he’d listen to it and listen to it and there’d be a long silence and he’d say, ‘You should probably go back and write some more.’ If my brother didn’t have the patience that he did ...,” B.o.B.’s voice trails off into another laugh.
B.o.B. released his first mix tape, “Cloud 9,” when he was a senior in high school and hit the streets for a couple of years, passing out CDs to anyone who would accept them, or, as it happened when he headed to Miami to shill outside the Super Bowl, toss them on the concrete.
Since then, “It’s been a Cinderella story,” he said with a sideways grin.
He’s being a tad facetious. True, his first official album, 2010’s “B.o.B. Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray,” arrived at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. The disc was released on the collection of Rebel Rock Entertainment, the label created by hip-hop producer Jim Jonsin (“Lollipop,” “Whatever You Like”) and T.I.’s Grand Hustle imprint, which is distributed by Atlantic Records. He became only the 13th male solo artist in chart history to debut in the top slot.
The CD spawned a trio of hits — “Nothin’ on You” with Bruno Mars, “Airplanes” with Paramore’s Hayley Williams and “Magic” with Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, and introduced him to an audience far beyond the mix tape demographic. At the 2011 Grammys, he performed with Mars and fellow Atlantan Janelle Monae in a soul throwback performance that had even grandmothers inquiring about him.
But B.o.B. paid his dues. There were the money-losing tours, the nights when he and his crew could barely scrape together cash to buy gas for the van and a hotel room.
“It got to the point where I was like, ‘Man, something’s gotta break,’” he said.
Now, he owns a mini-mansion in Stone Mountain outfitted with a home studio where he recorded and produced the majority of “Strange Clouds,” which arrived May 1 with a Top 5 debut on the Billboard album chart. His guests on the album range from mentor T.I. to Lil Wayne to, yes, believe it, Taylor Swift.
Swift is such a fan that she requested B.o.B.’s presence onstage when she played Philips Arena last fall, but since he was out of town, T.I. stepped in. The relationship continued, with Swift arranging for B.o.B. to join her for a song during her show in Dallas, which is when he played her an early version of “Both of Us,” the newest single from “Strange Clouds.”
“Instantly, she was like, ‘I love it. This is amazing.’ She recorded it in L.A. and we blended quite well together,” B.o.B. said, then added with an impish laugh, “She has great taste in music.”
Swift is hardly the only peer to hold B.o.B. in high regard. T.I., who appears on the song “Arena” on the new record, all but gushes when asked about his mentee.
“He’s a phenomenal talent. He has tremendous gifts that allow him to diversify his sound and travel from one extreme to the other, musically,” said T.I. (aka Clifford Harris). “I think he’s becoming a lot more comfortable in his own ability. He’s harnessing his talents and powers.”
The duo has a collaboration album, “Man and the Martian,” in the works, and T.I. said they have about five songs recorded so far and will finish the rest when their schedules allow for simultaneous studio time.
“Once he finishes his promotion and comes off the road, I’ll be on board,” T.I. said.
After a post-game concert at Turner Field on June 16, B.o.B. will head to Europe for a few dates, then return for a summer tour. It’s just the beginning of another year or so of promotion behind an album he believes “shows people a lot more why I’m me, why I sound the way I do.”
It’s now 45 minutes later and the mosquito-buzz whine of the tattoo gun is finally silenced. B.o.B. turns his head to observe his new $300 ink, and it’s impossible not to notice the large “EASTSIDE” imprinted on his left forearm.
He’s asked if his continued success means he’ll leave Atlanta for taller skyscrapers and he shakes his head.
“This will always be my home. I’ll always have a shelter here,” he said. “When everything is moving, you want to have a place. If you completely uproot, you become a floating branch.”
And with that, he’s out the door on the way to the airport. His flight leaves in an hour, but he’s not worried about missing it. Things always seem to go his way these days.
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Event
B.o.B. will perform a free concert after the June 16 Braves-Orioles game at Turner Field. The game starts at
7:30 p.m.
For tickets,
call 1-800-745-3000 or visit www.braves. com/tickets.
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