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Luke, The Smeezingtons, Jim Jonsin, Lil' C, Alex da Kid, Polow da Don, and DJ Frank E. Production for the album took place during 2008 to 2010 and was handled by B.o.B, Crada, Dr. The Adventures of Bobby Ray is a curiously lonely affair, the sound of a singular talent being drowned in a tidal wave of cheerful banality.B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray is the debut studio album by American rapper B.o.B, released April 27, 2010, on Grand Hustle Records, Rebel Rock Entertainment and Atlantic Records. "Somebody take me back to the days/ Before this was a job, before I got paid," he asks, remembering, "back before I tried to cover up my slang." It's a brief acknowledgment of what he has had to give up to get here. In the lyrics to "Airplanes", a moody teen-pop melodrama with a chorus by Paramore's Hayley Williams, Bobby Ray pines, just like he did on "Fuck You", for simpler times. Is it the air-conditioned sub-Coldplay crooning of Bruno Mars on "Nothin On You"? Bobby Ray's inexplicable decision to turn Vampire Weekend's "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" into a Sublime song? Or the appearance by Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, whose creepily blank vocals on "Magic" sound like the engineer has a gun to his head? B.o.B himself struggles to inject personality into the proceedings. The bulk of the record, though, is a undifferentiated mass of sticky-sweet modern-rock radio in which it's difficult to single out the lowest moment. "Fame" flips a sample of Canadian cheese rockers April Wine into a surprisingly funky horn loop, and "5th Dimension", despite a ludicrous yowled hook from Lenny Kravitz stand-in Rico Barrino that bites "Inner City Blues" and regrettable space-rock guitars, features some of B.o.B's most vivid rapping. Only three tracks feel even remotely connected to a rap aesthetic, and they are the best things here by a mile: "Bet I" finds him somersaulting joyfully around a juddering 808 kick, backed by an equally on-fire T.I. On Bobby Ray he's reduced to a guest rapper on his own songs. This is a disturbing strategy to pursue, but it's particularly galling here B.o.B is a fantastically gifted rapper, with an astonishing rhythmic command and a tricky, limber way with phrasing. Basically put it anywhere listeners are least likely to notice it. Bury it under dewy pianos and sensitive cooing sugar-coat it with emo-pop choruses tuck it behind compressed guitars.
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It turns out that the answer to the above question- "What do major labels think it takes to sell rap albums in 2010?" - is simple: hide the rapping. As an actual album, it is wretched- a dishearteningly generic and hollow product with no soul or demographic or viewpoint that arguably bottoms out three separate times. As a primer on what major label execs think they need to do to sell a rap record to a mass audience in 2010, Bobby Ray is a queasily fascinating document. Atlantic invested time and effort into "grooming" B.o.B, and since record companies tend only to take notice when their pre-planned strategies pan out (ground-level phenomena like Gucci Mane tend to get dismissed as flukes), we can expect to see a lot more records patterned explicitly on The Adventures of Bobby Ray. In 2003, when people still bought CDs, these numbers would have been embarrassing for a high-profile hip-hop debut, but in 2010, they are, apparently, victory-lap worthy. To put that in perspective: Bobby Ray sold 84,000 copies. The result should serve as a cautionary tale to all involved, except for one small detail: The Adventures of Bobby Ray was the No. They catered to all his worst instincts, and he gladly surrendered himself to theirs. The long road from that to The Adventures of Bobby Ray seems dominated by record execs who manicured, man-handled, and placated the rapper. It was B.o.B in a nutshell: arrogant, self-aware, undeniably promising.
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The logic was counterintuitive, even a little ridiculous, but the song itself was warm, fluid, and surprising. "They say that I'm changing/ Cuz I'm gettin famous," went the chorus to 2008's "Fuck You", a bluesy lope of acoustic guitar and twangy harmonica that recalled vintage Dungeon Family. B.o.B began griping about the trials of fame long before he had any.