B.o.B. Presents: The Adventure of Bobby Ray – B.o.B.

Year	Album	Artist	Stars	Score	Genre
2010	B.o.B. Presents The Adventures of Bobby Ray	B.o.B.	★½	38	Hip-Hop	Pop Hip-Hop

Of all of the post blog-era debut albums hat popped up from 2010-12, B.o.B. Presents: The Adventure of Bobby Ray is the most sterilized, generic and pop-radio ready. Simple, repetitive hip-hop drums play behind soft, pop-rock instrumentation; anthemic, sentimental hooks are sung by pop singers; and occasionally an electronic/dubstep-influenced track will try to masquerade as a Southern hip-hop beat. Every moment sounds like it was carefully crafted by the industry to produce a few crossover hits that could attract untraditional hip-hop fans like young kids and middle-aged white women who were a little curious about the genre after enjoying Eminem’s comeback. I’m surprised they even had to slap a Parental Advisory on the cover (maybe they did that to grab actual hip-hop fans’ attention). 

B.o.B. sounds like a happy, nice enough guy who’s excited to be getting his chance, but nothing he does here is original or show stopping. If anything, he sounds like someone trying to be both members of Speakerbox-era Outkast at once, but without any of the biting lyrics or gritty experience.  

Megahits “Nothin’ On You” and “Airplanes” blew up on radio almost entirely because of Bruno Mars and Hayley Williams’ contributions on the hooks (and Eminem’s verse on the remix), not because of anything B.o.B. brought to the table. “Magic” had its moment because of Rivers Cuomo’s Weezer-esque chorus and beat. People listened to “Past My Shades” specifically to get their Lupe Fiasco fix, and listened to “Bet I” to check out T.I., who “found” B.o.B. before he broke out. “The Kids” heavily samples a track off Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut record, a cute song that closes out that album nicely but never at all sounded like a hip-hop beat. If anything, it just serves as an opportunity for B.o.B. to sing a little and to show off the up-and-coming Janelle Monae to a larger audience. 

I will say, the handful of times B.o.B. does sing on his own, he sounds pretty good. Maybe the prominence of guitars and pianos across the album could have been better utilized to highlight his talents as a singer instead of a rapper.

Because of how clean and shiny and happy this album is, it’s actually pretty easy to get through, but it’s an example of how something doesn’t have to sound bad to be bad. Beyond “Nothin’’ on You” and “Airplanes” (which I’ve never really been a fan of), there is no substance or style here at all. It’s a bland pop album with a hint of Southern hip-hop flair sprinkled here and there as a garnish.