Downtown Mobile Alabama, 1993. Picture it like this: you’re six years old. The school bus picks you up, not unlike the scene in Forest Gump, when he first boards his first bus to school. Only you’re the only white kid on the bus. Headed to Leinkauf Elementary, a nearly all black school. That was me. I found out from an early age you had to be tough here, or you wouldn’t last. That was the opposite of my nature, which was (and still is) to be kind hearted and gentle. The first few years there were indeed rough. But as Darwin said, adapt or don’t last. So I did.

By 1997 I was fully accepted by way of winning a dance contest at school. After that I secured the confidence I still have ingrained inside of me to this day. I’d spend the rest of the 90s and early 2000s building that confidence by way of Crawford Park, which at that time was the cultural Mecca of the Mobile housing projects. Picture big body Chevy Caprices with gold rims, the rumble of 18-inch subwoofers blasting Geto Boys, OutKast and Tupac. That’s where I earned the nickname Bird. Playing pick up games on the concrete basketball courts. I Learned hard lessons there: getting my bike stolen, ducking gun shots, standing up for myself after getting flattened on those concrete courts, and being the underdog that I still am today through my music. All this taught me to be fearlessly me. Unapologetically me. Always. No matter what.

Fast forward to 2001, when I first picked up the guitar. An instrument that would define the rest of my life. My father’s old Japanese made Conn guitar. He would teach me how to play by way of the opening riff to Johnny Rivers’ Secret Agent Man. After that I was hooked. The next 25 years would see me face many ups and down as an artist, singer/songwriter, and the ultimate underdog. In the early 2010s I would fall in love with country music–Hank Williams Sr., Lefty Frizzell, Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Faron Young, Patsy Cline, and many more. I learned the art of story telling and songwriting from these artists, along with my early mentor James Taylor whom my mother would play all throughout my childhood.

After putting out my first EP (2016) and full length album in (2019) steeped in traditional country, I was ready for something new. Which I would find after reading a copy of the ancient Indian scripture: The Bhagavad Gita. I fell down the Vedic rabbit hole of spirituality by way of Indian philosophy and Raga Music. This would lead me to create a whole new kind of music for me. I spent the next 3-4 years working on an EP called Krishna Country Gold, which would combine the Far East with the Deep South by incorporating spiritual wisdom and instrumentation from India with the country music I so loved.

But ultimately I’d never forgotten my childhood roots. I was still that boy who fell in love with early 90’s hip hop. In late 2022, After re-discovering the classic WuTang album 36 Chambers, I found my next project–Alabama Samurai. From late 2022 until 2025, I spent most of my time at The Greenhouse Studio in Atlanta, GA, working with Loud Dave Noise on how to properly combine Kung Fu, Hip Hop, and my style of “existential country music” (AL.com).

In the process, I hit a new low in early 2023 after my band abandoned me, opting for another artist. I mourned, but I found my strength and confidence again by tirelessly soaking in 36 Chambers, Liquid Swords, and the rest of the RZA-led WuTang family of solo albums. Recording got going in April of 2023 on my 36th birthday. The coincidence is not lost on me. Three years later, it’s finally done.

Protect Ya Neck.

B.B. Palmer

The first single from Alabama Samurai drops next week, Friday the 13th.

Cover photo by Charley Windham.