MC: The new release came out with little notice and advance press. Why was this?
B.o.B: It was supposed to just be an EP. It started with “Back and Forth”; that was the main entree to speak, but we wanted some appetizers, some starters and some sides. It grew into this whole project. Then the album cover didn’t start out as the album cover, it started as a painting I wanted made, but it ended up being this work of art. It gave me a chance to show other sides of it. It’s all the psychedelic influences––I felt like it was the perfect combination of art, sonically and visually.
MC: It reminds us of the cover art for Axis: Bold as Love by Jimi Hendrix.
B.o.B: After we started working on the painting, the artist would do sketches and I would give notes. At one point she sent me the cover of Axis, and I thought it was crazy, a coincidence of synchronicity. It wasn’t the reference point that I pulled, but maybe somewhere in my subconscious mind I saw it and it was like, “You should give me multiple heads and arms.” I hate to say what art represents to me, because I want people to have their own interpretations, even if it’s not what I intend. For me the cover is about being multifaceted and having different sides musically.
MC: Are you into Hendrix?
B.o.B: I didn’t get into rock until my late teens. My brother used to try to get me to listen to Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana. I wasn’t into it because I didn’t have the taste yet. When you’re a kid you want McDonalds––the Chicken McNuggets––you don’t want the restaurant with the fancy napkins yet. When I got older I got into rock and started listening to the Foo Fighters and Paramore and Coldplay. It’s like, once I got into it and started understanding and developing a taste for rock music, I told myself, “I can be the bridge between hip-hop and rock.”
MC: Did you observe the historic cross-collateralization of the two genres?
B.o.B: I know obviously there have been collaborations between hip-hop and rock since Run-DMC and Aerosmith, Rick Rubin and Jay Z. Sampling rock records like Lil Jon’s “Let’s Go”––that was a sample from “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne. Obviously hip-hop and rock and the fusion of such have been played with. But I feel like the sonics of rock music and the alternative side of rock music is the bridge between what hip-hop is. It’s not always about the extreme, distorted guitars, screaming and crowd surfing. It’s about enriching the song with layers and putting music in it that you typically wouldn’t find in hip-hop or trap music.
So that was my thinking when I started picking up the guitar. But I had some fun first and I had to make my own rock songs, like “No Man’s Land” and “Out of Time” and “Goodnight” and “Monster.” “Don’t Let Me Fall” was the first song on my first album, but when I perform with my band it’s one of the best songs I perform.
The more I got into that I think rock music opened me up––I ended up collaborating with Hayley from Paramore, and that band’s Jeremy Davis played bass on “Violet Vibrato.” It opened my mind up to the fact I could do anything––meditation music if I wanted––and reveal a real evolution in my own musical preferences.
MC: The final cut on Psycadelik Thoughtz is “Have Nots” where you talk about how you came up. One line is, “He who doesn’t love what he has will never have enough.”
B.o.B: Yes, it’s true. The thing that propelled my work ethic was the “less than” situation I grew up in. I felt like I needed to go and make something of myself in the world and to be successful. Really it was me wanting to not have the financial burdens that I had as a kid when I was growing up. But I had to learn to understand to be appreciative of [having nothing] as well as having something. Ultimately what you have is not what you can buy––that lesson is what that song is about.
MC: We can hear you rattling pots and pans as you talk to us. Are you making breakfast?
B.o.B: Yes. If I didn’t do music I’d be a chef. My specialty go-to dishes are Mexican and Italian food. Anything spicy and anything cheesy. And I love hot food.
MC: What do you tell creative people who are coming up about the complex world of music?
B.o.B: Anything is possible. If you can conceive it and have the idea, then it’s possible. When it comes to art, understand the difference between art and the business of art and it will resolve a lot of conflicts that an aspiring artist might have. But ultimately know what you what to do and what you want to say, and be liberated in doing so.
MC: Bobby Ray, you’ve been very generous with your thoughts and your time. Do you have any last words for our Music Connection readers?
B.o.B: Remember, don’t drink and drive... smoke and fly!
Contact Tresa Sanders, Tremedia.
