ACT III: Who is B.o.B?
After achieving a spot on MTV’s annual “Hottest MC In The Game” list, B.o.B faced backslash from some music critics and fans. With his foray into pop, some believed that he didn’t have the credentials to be classified along with the top rappers in the game. They questioned if he was a true emcee or a guitar-toting pop star.
“When you’re different, it’s a job,” he admits. “You have to be wise enough to use your gift. You have to really grow into who you want to be. The challenges that I always faced was because I was different. Some people try to take it and change it. It’s not necessarily about what’s the right way and what’s the wrong; it’s your way of doing something. That’s what I had to really figure out. When you’re an artist you have to challenge you’re creative energy. It comes from you and the team that you’re around.”
But B.o.B does admit that there was a time when he didn’t want to be categorized as “just another rapper.”
“I was 19 years old when I picked up the guitar,” he says. “I started to really fall in love with the eclectic side of life. I started to understand why I was different. Around that time, I didn’t want to be considered as an emcee or a rapper. I wanted to be a John Lennon, or a Bob Marley. Going through that phase, I learned a lot about myself. I was really deep into the spiritual side of life. Then, I had to come back down to ground myself. Around that time, it all started to evolve and mold into this thing where everybody could see I wasn’t just your everyday artist.”
