"Nothin' on You" is the debut single by American rapper B.o.B. The song features vocals from Bruno Mars. The song is included in B.o.B's debut studio album, B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray. An official remix version of this song, which features Big Boi, debuted on March 21, 2010. The song reached number one in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. The song was nominated for three Grammys, including Record of the Year, on December 1, 2010 for the 53rd Grammy Awards.
Background[edit]
During the summer of 2009, The Smeezingtons (Bruno Mars, Philip Lawrence and Ari Levine) were booked for a week of writing sessions for Lupe Fiasco, B.o.B and Travie McCoy. Atlantic A&R Aaron Bay-Schuck told HitQuarters that one of his responsibilities is in encouraging Mars and Lawrence to develop the best of the original melodies he often heard them casually humming, and it was one of these melodies that formed the inspiration to "Nothin' on You". By the end of the week the group had created a scratch chorus-only demo of the song featuring Bruno Mars singing on a guitar track. The Travie McCoy song "Billionaire" was also conceived at this time. Several weeks later B.o.B joined The Smeezingtons in the studio to complete the full song. In an interview with Midweek, Mars explained the lyrical inspiration for the song, "Every song I write has to do with a real-life experience, whether it's at the time or me back-tracking to how I felt at another moment. So, yeah, it was about someone; let's leave it at that."
In an interview to MTV News Mars and Philip explained how the song was created: "Me and Phil always had that hook," Mars told MTV News, spontaneously breaking out into the chorus that is helping to make him one of music's buzzed-about names. "It was a different melody at first, though," Lawrence added. "So one day our other partner — the Silent Bob of the Smeezingtons — Ari, he walked into the studio and said he programmed the drums [over]," Mars explained. "It had this old-school hip-hop beat. I said, 'Gimme the piano,' and that was the first thing I started playing. Magically, that melody worked with this track we were doing."
According to Jim Jonsin, the track was originally supposed to be sent to Lupe Fiasco, but Jonsin pressured Atlantic Records exec Craig Kallman to give the beat to B.o.B. Lupe says that Kallman told him his lyrics and performance on the record were "wack", and ultimately Lupe did not get the beat. He claims that this was a breaking point and drove him to be lightly suicidal. Lupe Fiasco's version of the song leaked on June 18, 2010. The song's drum beat is a sample taken from Joe Tex's "Papa Was Too" and is prominent throughout the song. On June 27, 2010, B.o.B performed the single with Fantasia Barrino's brother Ricco Barrino, who is also signed to Atlantic and Grand Hustle Records, at the BET Awards. With the release and initial success of "Nothin' On You" in 2010, the music careers of B.o.B and Bruno Mars made a jumpstart, with both artists scoring a few number one hits in the United States and European countries like "Airplanes", "Billionaire", "Magic" and the debut solo single from Bruno Mars "Just The Way You Are" later on. In 2011, "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of the song called "Another Tattoo", which is featured on his album Alpocalypse. On June 15, 2010, B.o.B released a duet single of "Nothin' on You" with Korean-American singer Jay Park, where he replaces Bruno Mars' vocals. Warner Music Korea explained that Park's featuring was made possible by music distribution company, Warner Music America's Asian counterpart, SEA, as well as his YouTube cover contributing to much of the song's success in Korea with more than 5 million hits.
Music video[edit]
The music video was directed by Ethan Lader (with animation done by George Rausch) and was filmed in the city of Los Angeles. It features both performers and premiered on March 9, 2010. The video features multiple collages of women taping over each other, in addition to a scene where B.o.B plays guitar and sings while Bruno Mars, the featured guest on the single, plays the drums. Philip Lawrence also plays the piano. The second runner-up of America's Next Top Model, Cycle 7, Eugena Washington, appears as one of the many girls in the video.
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