Meet B Sims | Singer songwriter producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with B Sims and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi B, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I’m from Memphis, Tennessee but I spent my developmental years, age 7-13, in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area. As a young kid I had to learn how to navigate an array of different environments. I grew up mainly in 2 really hard nose cities that afforded me the opportunity to learn a lot of lessons early that I find myself still applying in life to this day. Memphis is a southern city with a long rich history in music. Like most people from my city, I grew up heavily influenced by the legacy R&b/soul music and underground rap that had and has always thrived in the region. Artists like Al Greene, Sam Cooke, and Johnny Taylor conjunctively with the likes of Three 6 Mafia and 8ball & MJG were some of my largest, early influences. My move to Texas came at a point where an emerging “screw” music was the latest phenomenon. It was such an intriguing and interesting sound and time that really began to garner youth attention and really got me into rapping and writing witty rhymes around the age 8. Also, like most with similar backgrounds , a big part of those developmental years was influenced by the church and being in Fort Worth at a time when Kirk Franklin really began his rise to legendary was pivotal. My upbringing however was rather unconventional. My time was split between my maternal grandmother and my great grandmother in Memphis and with my mom in Texas. While in Texas I still spent all of my summers but one in Memphis so I was still the kid from Memphis to everyone there. Conversely, in Memphis, I was still more or less different from my counterparts that had grown up with their friends in a city that we all tout on our backs as proud representatives. Constantly moving and changing schools in these years really helped cultivate my people skills and adaptability which, I believe, are two of my most intrinsic attributes. The reputations for each of the cities I lived in kind of precede them so I won’t go into too much detail in highlighting some of the negativity, but if you’ve heard stories from these inner cities I’d bet they aren’t too far off from what my reality was growing up in low income neighborhoods but still homes rooted in middle class values. This is what I believe made me an extroverted introvert, as I like to call it. I’m the only child, but I’ve always had a wide circle of friends spanning across states since a child. I learned early how and who to trust and the power of discernment through boneheaded experiences and the teachings largely of my grandmother who I believe to have one of the most unique and enriched perspectives of all of the people I’ve ever met in my life. I’d like to think that the person I’ve become is an amalgamation of this and of the different types of love that my grandmothers, my mom, and my aunt poured into me from their staunchly different perspectives. Being, for the most part, the only male around also exacerbated my desire to do more for myself and the feeling of wanting to take care and provide for them all. I’m just on the cusp of being able to do so and super exited to do so for them and because of them. After 8 years in Atlanta, post college, I’ve managed to get a real footing in LA where I’m now apart of more projects than I’d ever imagined, that I truly believe in. I’ve helped bring together communities of creatives and fostered long lasting relationships with countless great human beings who I try to add value to and help be there best in efforts to be the best me I can be. The next phase of this journey starts right now today!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m a multi-hyphenated, singer/songwriter/ rapper/ producer/ engineer. I wrote my very first rhyme in the 4th grade to remember my social security number lol. Also, like most people around my age, I grew up imitating Michael Jackson. Little did I know that these imitations would be the beginnings of me finding my singing voice. After a few years of me learning to manipulate my voice through imitation and participating in church choir, I developed my own voice. However, I continued to put more focus on my rhyming ability which was heavily influenced by the freestyle sound emerging in Texas at the time. I lived in a neighborhood where singing was perceived as “soft” and made you a target for bullies and gangs but ever so popular with the ladies. I grappled with this most of my childhood, having to constantly teeter the line of vulnerability in so many ways. I listened to an enormous amount of Swisha House and Rap a Lot as a kid but I had a different accent and lingo with the charisma of a Memphian which made it more attention garnering as a child for me to be a stand out rapper. Coupled with the fact that I chose not to skip 2 grades early, I had the vocabulary of someone much older. In the 8th grade I moved to Dallas and started a boy group with another 8th grader but before we could get it really going I ended up moving back to Memphis. I had written a couple of songs in middle school but high school proved to be the turning point. One of my cousins was a producer in high school who, at the time, had been working with Dem Franchise Boyz, PitBull and Soulja Boy. In 10th grade he laced me with Fruity Loops Studio version 2 and a folder of sounds and VST’s thus making me a producer. During that time I learned how to work music software learning tricks of the trade in whatever DAW I could find a good crack for. In high school I formed a rap duo with one of my best friends who’s now a huge promoter for creatives in Denver Colorado, and currently building a studio that I’ve been consulting with. We were preparing to drop a mixtape in high school but someone had stolen my rap book one day and my rap dreams went right along with them. Around that time, this same friend and I were at practice for a step show when a member of our step team had to leave early one day and go to singing rehearsal. As he was leaving I jokingly said, “ why didn’t you tell me you were in a singing group….?” We kinda laughed it off in jest but a few weeks later his group was down one member and he asked me if I’d like to audition. I did, and that began a new journey. Initially I was the “rapper” of the group who just sang harmony parts and came up with the dance moves being that I was a pretty popular dancer in high school, occasionally making tracks. This happened at a point where I was part of the choir and musical theatre at one of the premiere high school programs in the state of Tennessee. The choir program really opened my musical pallet from singing in Latin and perfecting choral staples like “Ave Maria” or “Exsultate Deo”or even learning broadway classics like “Seasons of Love” from rent and “No One Mourns the Wicked”. This type of music gave me a different appreciation for musicality in a way that was much more intentional than the improvisational background of growing up listening to R&B/Soul classics, Gospel, and rap. It’s one of the things that, unbeknownst to many, separates my ears as a listener and a producer from those with a more traditional background. We would go through about 4 iterations of 2 different singing groups working in Memphis, Atlanta, Nashville, and Los Angeles. Just after high school I enrolled in Middle Tennessee State University where I studied to become an entertainment attorney with a double minor in Spanish and African American studies. MTSU had and still has one of the best recording industry programs for a state school in the entire country. There, I began to really understand the science and importance of engineering. It was my first chance to experiment with mic cabinets and mixing consoles, and Pro Tools. I dropped out in 2009 just before the recession hit with plans to move to LA and make it big. My group had just ascertained the backing of an up and coming local real estate developer who had connections in LA but little did we know that all of his resources would be frozen thus inhibiting us from doin just about everything. We didn’t let that stop our move to LA we’d planned for summer of ‘09. My grandmother lent me the last of her bank account to make it out here. I had every intention of paying her back because we, the real estate developer and I, had jobs at the Autozone Distribution Center {Ontario, CA<— not Canada} that we’d transferred from Tennessee. However, this dream was short lived due to the fact that the person we were signed to no longer had any capital which was one of the MAIN reasons we signed but understandably so because the entire country was goin through similar struggles. We would sing on the corner of Hollywood and highland, sing a record companies, we had a few performances but nothing amounted to much because we had no foundation and little to no resource. I was the only group member with any source of income all while we were living in one room at the Country Inn and Suites in Ontario. The financial duress proved to be too much and by happenstance we ended up moving back to my college town of Murfreesboro after just a few months in California. This move also brought about the dismantling of the group. One member of the group and I decided that we’d focus all of our efforts on producing and songwriting hence forth and try to make our way to Atlanta. Shorty thereafter the company we were signed to convinced us to take another go at it as a singing group in Atlanta. They’ d be paying for the 4 of us to get 2 studio apartments for the first 2 months and they had menial jobs set up for us to have SOME income. We had no money at the time so we jumped at the opportunity. When we did actually move to Atlanta, one of our group mates caught a case in Memphis and was prohibited from leaving the state until his court appearance. This led to us only having one studio apartment until that got sorted out, which it never did plus there were no jobs confirmed. This inevitably lead to the decline of the group for what proved to be a third and final time. At this point in Atlanta my best friend and I formed a production/songwriting duo “ The Elements”. For years we toughed it out perfecting our crafts with hours of endless studio work in LA New York and Atlanta working with the likes of Super Producers Rockwilder, Bangledesh and Scott Storch just to name a few but the journey really takes a while to be lucrative and with so many years with so little success my best friend decided to focus on stability. This left me for the first time in my life pursuing music on my own. Since then, 2016 I’ve been continuing to collaborate with so many phenomenal creatives. I’ve gone on to work on Grammy Nominated project “New Light” with one of my favorite songwriters ever, Eric Bellinger. I’ve had my work feature on ABC Fox HBO Max Vh1 and BET. I’ve been helping develop artists and helping kids achieve their recording dreams working with a program called Say it with Music for over 5 years. I’m super thrilled for this summer because I have so many more songs coming out! I just recently dropped a single that I co-wrote co-produced and mixed/mastered “Anyway” through Empire on 4/22/22. I also have several songs featured in BETs “All the Queens Men” ,“ P Valley: Season 2” on Starz’s ,”The Chi” on Showtime and a myriad of artist like 24kgldn and Jacob Latimore to name a few. As a kid I often heard the phrase, “jack of all trades, but a master none…” but I wasn’t till just after college that heard that later of the phrase that gave me he confidence to continue you to do all the thing I’ve done for my entire life. I believe the quote to be the quintessential thing that describes me and now it’s time for me to show the world that those like Paul Robeson still exist and we can set examples for anyone who’s been told that they can’t do multiple things and be great. While I do believe in hyper focusing on one or two at a time time achieve a certain level of mastery I want to be living proof that you can do whatever you set your mind heart and intention on doing through diligent research and consistency. THE best doesn’t exist all you ever need is YOUR best!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
When my people are in town I try to take them new places. LA has so many different types of hangouts to offer whether it’s a swanky eclectic cocktail spot like Elbow Room in Beverly Hills or 7 Grand Dtla or some rooftop vibes like Ep& LP Beverly Hills/ Catch LA or Perch Downtown or maybe something like The District which is a whole different type of vibe right by my house. I love somewhere where there’s good food music and vibes! We might even hit Station 1640 in Hollywood on a random night for some live music and stop by Stout for a good burger first then hit Mama shelter later before going. LA also has great outdoorsy fun like Universal Studios or Griffith and I live not too far from Santa Monica and Venice so I’m always down for a beach hop. I’m all about trying new things and getting my friends to do the same. Plus I, and I all my friends here, work in entertainment so when someone comes to visit I like to make sure they come to some industry type function with me just so they’re afforded an opportunity for sure to have an impromptu run in with a celeb or two lol!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Aside from the community of support that I’ve helped cultivate my grandmothers my mom and aunt I’d especially like to shout out Tabitha, Reality, Dean and Lamont because without them I wouldn’t have the career that I have!

Website: Songsxsims.com

Instagram: Yaboibsims

Linkedin: Songsxsimspublishing

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Image Credits
Pmp_Photos (Pat McKenzie)