B.o.B. and Hayley Williams collaborated on the seemingly heartfelt double-platinum hit “Airplanes” this summer, but they did not actually meet face-to-face until last week’s MTV Video Music Awards. Instead, they recorded the song separately, having actually never even spoken, and their parts were combined in a studio somewhere. Now B.o.B. has finally met “Airplanes”’ actual songwriter, a 22-year-old recent Cornell graduate named Tim Sommers who wears Wayfarers indoors. When Sommers and B.o.B were introduced at Manhattan nightclub SL this week, B.o.B. said, “I want to meet the person who changed my life,” and gave Sommers a huge hug “as if they had known each other for years,” but they certainly hadn’t. So does it takes away from “Airplanes”’ emotional credibility that it was apparently delivered to B.o.B. like an Ikea bookshelf, well-built in many places around the world but not yet assembled? In any case, the whole crew has now met, and B.o.B. has a best-selling album and a new friend in Tim Sommers.
B.o.B. stunned by ‘Airplanes’ songwriter [Page Six/NYP]
Related: B.o.B. and Hayley Williams’s Connection Goes Beyond Words
