Nothin’ but the Best

He compares it to being a politician on the campaign trail, then a superhero on some mysterious quest.

B.o.B is trying to describe what it's like to suddenly begin to get a taste of the success that the 21-year-old MC has been chasing since he started rapping in high school at age 14.

As someone who makes his living with words, he's never at a loss for them -- he's an exuberant dude, his voice as animated as a cartoon character.

Finally, he settles on an analogy that sums up his recent flirtations with fame.

"It's kind of like opening up a restaurant," begins the young rhymer, whose real name is Bobby Ray. "You have dreams of having a big restaurant, but you never know when it will happen. Then, one day, the right people come into your restaurant, and you get a lot of good reviews for having good food. So now the business is booming.

"It's supply and demand," he chuckles. "It's a big play on economics."

For Ray, the demand is there these days.

He recently saw his first official single, the sunny, girl-crazy pop crossover hit "Nothin' On You," hit the top of the Billboard singles chart, building a strong buzz for his debut album, "B.o.B presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray," which came out earlier this week.

An effervescent presence on the mic, Ray adopts a variety of guises on "Bobby Ray," from fleet-tongued, Southern-styled rapper to an elastic-voiced, Andre 3000-style rhymer/crooner to a radio-friendly pop hybrid, teaming up with Paramore singer Hayley Williams on "Airplanes," a brooding, anthemic single that's rapidly climbing the charts.

He's more gregarious than gangsta, more bohemian than bad ass.

"Gotta go to school, do the work, be a lawyer," he raps on "Haterz Everywhere." "Hell yeah, I'm all for the cause. Don't wanna get involved with the law."

Ray sounds confident enough when delivering lines like that on his debut, coming with sufficient gusto, but this hasn't always been the case.

"It's funny, I never really realized I could do this until about a year ago," he says. "Even though I've been working for so long and really pursuing it, sometime it's not the most promising thing. No matter how deep you're into it, you never know if it's really going to work out.

"I would always hear people say things like, 'You know, man, you're gonna be dope, man,' but it's like, you hear it so much, you get numb to it. So it's like, 'OK, everybody's saying this, but I have no album out, I'm not doing anything really -- I'm doing a few tours, and I'm working, but it just doesn't seem like it's paying off.' And so it had to take something like getting a number one single on Billboard and then you're like, 'OK.' "

Though he hails from the hip-hop hotbed of Atlanta, where there's a substantial industry presence, Ray initially had a hard time finding his niche with his difficult-to-pigeonhole aesthetic.

"I was always outside the mold," he notes. "It was like, 'Do you like this guy? Is it good?' And people would say, 'Well, it's different.' "

Different always takes some getting used to, but in Ray's case, people seem to be doing so.

He's currently speaking from the road, headed to another gig, his life moving as fast as the scenery flying by outside the window.

"This will be like one of the moments that they put in VH1's 'Behind The Music': 'He topped the charts with his debut single,' " Ray muses with a playful relish. "What I set out to accomplish, I'm starting to accomplish. Now, it's about keeping goals, keeping something to accomplish on my agenda, but more so, finding the inspiration to do that.

"Everything moves so fast," he notes. "You just have to let it happen."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.