Alexander Leon Gumuchian (/ɡʊˈmuːtʃiːɛn/; born June 30, 1995), better known as bbno$ (pronounced as "baby no money"),[4] is a Canadian rapper and singer from Vancouver. He is best known for his 2019 single "Lalala" with producer Y2K, which has reached over 800 million plays on the streaming service Spotify as well as his collaborations with rapper Yung Gravy.
bbno$ | |
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![]() bbno$ on the Cold Ones talk show, 2020 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Alexander Leon Gumuchian |
Born | (1995-06-30) June 30, 1995 (age 27)[1] Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada[2] |
Genres | |
Occupation(s) |
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Years active | 2015–present |
Website | bbnomula |
Born in Vancouver[2] in 1995 into an Armenian family, Gumuchian was homeschooled before he began high school.[5][6] While growing up, his mother had encouraged him to learn piano but he had always struggled with music theory.[7] Gumuchian claims that he was good with rhythm and that he enjoyed playing djembe drums, but did not listen to music for recreation until the age of 15.[7]
Gumuchian started working with music after experiencing a back injury which prevented him from pursuing his dream as a professional swimmer.[4][8] He became interested in rapping and music production in 2014 when experimenting on GarageBand with a group of friends.[9] Gumuchian began simply making music for enjoyment with this group of friends who later deemed themselves Broke Boy Gang.[4] After five or six months of performing live as a group and releasing multiple tracks online, the group broke up.[4] He began posting tracks on SoundCloud in September 2016 under the moniker of "bbnomula" where he quickly gained millions of streams and followers.[10][4] He gained popularity in China where he sold out his first few "back-to-back" headlining tours.[2] He credited his overseas popularity to the Chinese dance crew TFBoys, after one of the members, Jackson Yee, danced to the track "Yoyo Tokyo" at his own birthday party.[11]
In 2017, Gumuchian released his first EP, Baby Gravy, as a collaboration with Yung Gravy,[12] shortly before releasing his debut studio album, Bb Steps, and his second collaborative EP, Whatever, with So Loki in 2018.[13][14]
In early 2019, Gumuchian released his second studio album, Recess, which draws inspiration from the original Disney show of the same name, and includes features from Y2K and Trippy Tha Kid.[15][16] Many tracks off of Recess gained millions of streams on Spotify.[11] Gumuchian and Y2K have been recognized for marketing their single "Lalala" online by using various websites and online apps, namely Tinder, Instagram meme accounts, TikTok and Craigslist.[17][11] The song was able to peak on over 20 charts around the world and gain over 400 million streams and 500,000 sales in the United States.[18][17][19]
Later in 2019, Gumuchian would go on to release another album, I Don't Care At All. The album featured various pre-released singles, "Slop", "Pouch", and "Shining On My Ex", the latter of which featured frequent collaborator Yung Gravy. The album was solely produced by Y2K.[20]
On February 14, 2020, Baby Gravy 2 was released in collaboration with Yung Gravy. It serves as a sequel to the 2017 Baby Gravy EP.
The video for his single "Imma" features bbno$ in drag, travelling around Victoria with drag queen Jimbo.[21]
On January 29, 2021, "Help Herself" was released. The song, produced by Diamond Pistols, served as the first single from a new bbno$ project.[22]
Later in the year, on May 14, 2021, the five-song EP titled My Oh My was released. Three of the five songs, "Help Herself", "Bad to the Bone", and "Help Herself" (with Benee) had been released as singles prior to the EP releasing.
On July 24, 2021, "Edamame" featuring Rich Brian was released. This song was the first single from bbno$' mixtape Eat Ya Veggies.
Shortly after the release of "Edamame" bbno$ started teasing a new album on Twitter.[23][24] Following that, bbno$ released the second single from the project, titled "I Remember", on September 22, 2021.[25]
On October 8, 2021, bbno$ released Eat Ya Veggies. The 6th track in the album, "u mad!", was included in CS:GO's Oct 7, 2021 update.[26]
He released his first new single of 2022 on April 8, titled "Mathematics". The song was performed in March 2022 at his European shows,[27] and the music video was teased during the Vancouver Canucks hockey game on April 4.
"Piccolo" was also first performed in March 2022 in Europe and in May 2022 during the Canada tour. The song is also known as "Dragon Ball Z" due to the lyric in the chorus "Dragon Ball Z dick, blow me like a piccolo". The song was teased on bbno$'s TikTok on May 18, two days before it was released.
His single "Pogo" was released on June 24, 2022, and was produced by Diplo. Various snippets were teased on social media and the song title was confirmed during a Twitch live stream in April.[28]
Bag or Die, bbno$'s most recent studio album, was released on October 21, 2022.[29] It includes the singles "Mathematics", "Piccolo" and "Sophisticated",[29] along with a collaboration with Yung Gravy, "touch grass".[30]
Gumuchian has described his own music as "oxymoronic rap" that is "ignorant but melodic".[31] Gumuchian grew up listening to straight bass dubstep and house music from names like Datsik and Excision, before listening to hip-hop artists, namely Tupac, Gucci Mane and Chief Keef.[7] He has cited Yung Lean and Pouya as his main inspirations as a rapper.[9][32]
Gumuchian lives in Vancouver but has previously lived in Kelowna, where he received a degree in kinesiology at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in 2019.[32][7]
Title | Details | Peak chart positions | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CAN [33] |
FIN [34] |
LIT [35] |
NOR [36] |
US [37] | |||||||||
Bb Steps |
|
— | — | — | — | — | |||||||
Recess |
|
— | — | — | — | — | |||||||
I Don't Care at All |
|
88 | — | — | — | — | |||||||
Baby Gravy 2 (with Yung Gravy) |
|
— | — | — | — | 188 | |||||||
Good Luck Have Fun |
|
— | — | — | — | — | |||||||
Eat Ya Veggies |
|
36 | 19 | 17 | 32 | — | |||||||
Bag or Die |
|
— | — | 83 | — | — | |||||||
"—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released. |
Title | Details |
---|---|
Baby Gravy |
|
Whatever (with So Loki) |
|
Babydrip (with SwuM) |
|
My Oh My |
|
Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Album | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
CAN [44] |
AUS [45] |
FIN [34] |
NOR [36] |
NZ [46] |
SWE [47] |
UK [48] |
US [49] |
US R&B [50] |
WW [51] | ||||
"Money Conversation" (with Y2K)[52] |
2018 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | |
"Thankful" (with Y2K and Lewis Grant)[53] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Recess | ||
"Pouch" (with Y2K)[54] |
2019 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | I Don't Care At All | |
"Cheesy" (with Warhol.SS and Dilip)[55] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album singles | ||
"Lalala" (with Y2K or with Y2K, Carly Rae Jepsen and Enrique Iglesias) |
10 | 16 | 16 | 23 | 16 | 58 | 32 | 55 | 22 | — | |||
"Bad Boy" (with Yung Bae and Billy Marchiafava)[59] |
84 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Bae 5 | ||
"Slop" | — | — | — | — | —[upper-alpha 1] | — | — | — | — | — | I Don't Care at All | ||
"Shining on My Ex" (with Yung Gravy)[61] |
— | — | — | — | —[upper-alpha 2] | — | — | — | — | — | I Don't Care at All and Baby Gravy 2 | ||
"Iunno" (with Yung Gravy)[63] |
— | — | — | — | —[upper-alpha 3] | — | — | — | — | — | Baby Gravy 2 | ||
"Welcome to Chilis" (with Yung Gravy) |
2020 | — | — | — | — | —[upper-alpha 4] | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"Off the Goop" (with Yung Gravy and Cuco)[66] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Out of Control" (with ceo@business.net and Lentra)[67] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Incentivize Unpaid Overtime | ||
"Mememe" (with Lentra)[68] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Good Luck Have Fun | ||
"Quarantine Freestyle" (with Lentra)[69] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album singles | ||
"What Would Baby Do?" (with Lentra)[70] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Bad Boy" (with Yung Bae, and Max)[71] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Astrology" (with Lentra)[72] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Good Luck Have Fun | ||
"Jack Money Bean" (with Yung Gravy and Lentra)[73] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Good Luck Have Fun and Gasanova | ||
"Imma" (with Lentra)[74] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Good Luck Have Fun | ||
"Backwards" (with Lentra)[75] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"WaWaWa" (with Y2K)[76] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | ||
"Help Herself" (with Diamond Pistols)[77] |
2021 | — | — | — | — | —[upper-alpha 5] | — | — | — | — | — | My Oh My | |
"Bad to the Bone" (with Lentra)[79] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Wussup" (with Yung Gravy)[80] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Eat Ya Veggies | ||
"Edamame" (featuring Rich Brian) |
13 | 23 [81] | 8 | 24 | 21 [82] | — | 89 | —[upper-alpha 6] | — | 165 | |||
"Take a Trip" (with ceo@business.net and Jungle Bobby)[84] |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | ||
"Yoga" (featuring Rebecca Black)[85] |
— | — | — | — | —[upper-alpha 7] | — | — | — | — | — | Eat Ya Veggies | ||
"Mathematics" | 2022 | — | — | — | — | —[upper-alpha 8] | — | — | — | — | — | Bag or Die | |
"Piccolo" | — | — | — | — | —[upper-alpha 9] | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Sophisticated"[29] | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"C'est la Vie" (with Yung Gravy and Rich Brian) |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Marvelous | ||
"Touch Grass" (with Yung Gravy) |
— | — | — | — | —[upper-alpha 10] | — | — | — | — | — | Bag or Die | ||
"—" denotes releases that did not chart or were not released. |
Year | Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2020 | Juno Award | Fan Choice Award | Nominated | [90] |
Breakthrough Artist of the Year | Nominated |