ARTIST: B.o.B
ALBUM: Underground Luxury
LABEL: Grand Hustle/Atlantic
RELEASE DATE: December 17, 2013
Cream of the Crop
Written by Jeremy Weeden
Atlanta rapper B.o.B has had plenty of previous success but his last album was more pop than hip-hop and B.o.B took some criticism from some corners. With his third album, Underground Luxury, B.o.B is looking to balance his different musical styles. The album is tinted with all of B.o.B.’s musical influences from rap and soul to electronica and rock. The result is an appealing, easy to listen to album with a wide variety of songs.
The first song “All I Want” is a slow grooving song that finds B.o.B rapping and singing about the different things he wants— mainly women and money. “One Day” is a bass heavy, piano laden song about B.o.B’s dreams before he made it big. He raps about the things he and his family used to want when he was growing up. At the end of the song B.o.B speaks about growing up poor with no refrigerator, heat or AC, but that instead of feeling sorry for himself, he used it as motivation to get out of poverty and never have to go back.
“Throwback” featuring Chris Brown features an electronica styled synth beat and is definitely a possible future single. The vocal sample and the drums go together seamlessly with the synthesizer to perfectly showcase B.O.B’s producing skills.
Things relax a bit with “Back Me Up” a bass heavy, slow melodic song that catches B.o.B boasting about his lyrical prowess with rhymes like “They was hopin I’d probably fall off, right/But all I feel was them haters on my back yeah/ I ain’t even got no genre/But this ganja gives contact, yeah/Well how the hell they gone call us the rap game when most of yall niggas can’t rap/Most of yall niggas so whack/Most of yall ain’t got, most of yall ain’t got no swag/Most of yall bad.”
B.o.B has obviously not forgotten where his biggest successes have come from as “Coastline” is more of a pop oriented song in the vein of “Airplanes” or “So Good.” B.o.B sings the chorus and raps the verses. This song sounds like a Top 40 hit should he choose to release it as a single.
No doubt everyone has heard the bouncy “Headband” featuring 2 Chainz. This song, the album’s second single is perfect for the clubs and the radio. 2 Chainz comes with his trademark comedic flow with lines like “Chain hang to my ding-a-ling/Chain hang, chain hang to my ding-a-ling/To do a threesome you gotta intervene/Her legs so sexy when I’m in-between.”
Underground Luxury takes a more serious turn with “John Doe” which features Priscilla and is about alcoholism and its effects on people and those around them. B.o.B paints the perfect picture of a closet alcoholic through lyrics like “Without it, it’s just harder to function at times/You race to the bottom of every single bottle as if there was someone or something to find/You’re struggling in your mind/And you tell yourself lie after lie/Till you get to the point where it’s no longer private/People that you work with noticed the signs/When you walk in the room it gets noticeably quiet/So you break up the silence, you say you’ve been at the gym/But the way that you look, you can’t blame on the diet/So what you hiding?”
“Cranberry Moonwalk” is B.o.B’s dedication to quality, high-grade marijuana fresh out of the jar. This is a nice smooth song with the beats switching from an old school R&B groove over the chorus to a more traditional beat for B.o.B’s verses.
Overall, Underground Luxury is a well-put together album that fans of B.o.B will certainly enjoy. The album showcases B.o.B‘s many talents without coming across as forced. B.o.B himself produced the majority of the album and it shows with the way he flows naturally over each track. Underground Luxury is definitely worth a listen as almost everyone is sure to find a few songs they enjoy.