Songfacts®:

• This was the breakout hit for B.o.B, a rapper and producer from Atlanta, Georgia, known to his friends and family as Bobby Ray Simmons or Bobby Ray. After signing to Atlantic Records in 2006, he recorded several mixtapes and EPs before releasing "Nothin' On You" in December 2009. The song gradually picked up steam and went to #1 in May 2010, around the same time he released his debut album, B.o.B presents The Adventures of Bobby Ray, which includes the track and also hit #1.
  
  B.o.B had a another big hit with "Airplanes" (featuring Hayley Williams) on that album, and his second album, Strange Clouds in 2012, did well, but by 2018 he was pushing conspiracy theories and was dropped by Atlantic.
• The singer on the track is, of course, Bruno Mars, making his debut with that distinctive hook:
  
  Beautiful girls all over the world
  I could be chasin', but my time would be wasted
  They got nothin' on you, baby
  
  Bruno is also a writer and producer on the track - this was before he launched his solo career and was focused on making hits for other artists.
  
  The style and sentiment - Bruno letting a girl know she has nothing to fear from other women because they've got "Nothing on You" - is something we'd hear a lot more of over the next decades as Bruno became a superstar, starting with his debut solo single "Just The Way You Are," another #1 hit that also sings the praises of the lucky lady:
  
  Girl you're amazing
  Just the way you are
• B.o.B and Bruno Mars were both signed to Atlantic records, which is why they teamed up on this track.
• The track was helmed by the production team the Smeezingtons, which comprises Phillip Lawrence, Ari Levine and Bruno Mars. Lawrence told MTV News: "We actually wrote and sung on the hook. We'd been fans of his for a minute and he came in and just murdered those verses. Hopefully the rest is gonna be history."
• B.o.B told the story behind the song to Artist Direct: "I'm still young, but in the song I'm reflecting on my younger days when I was all about chasing girls. I was a hopeless romantic and made a lot of stupid decisions. It's about those days. I'm compiling my observations of myself and putting them on a record. I feel like it was a happy marriage between the lyrics that Bruno sang and what I'm doing because he pretty much summed it up and I just had to elaborate on it in my way. I switched up my vocal inflection. It's different; a lot of B.o.B fans didn't notice it was me on first listen."
• Bobby Ray told MTV News that the song was a hit because it's "really genuine and really sincere."
  
  He added that sometimes girls who feel insecure need a boost of confidence from their significant other. "I feel like [the song] kind of spoke to 'that crowd,' " he smiled, "which is a huge crowd apparently."
• B.o.B was the first male to rapper to score a US #1 with his debut single since Flo Rida had a chart-topper with his maiden release, "Low," on the chart dated January 5, 2008.
• B.o.B is the first American act whose name is a palindrome to top the Hot 100. The other two who did so prior to the Atlanta rapper were both Scandinavian groups. They were ABBA, who reigned with "Dancing Queen" in 1977, and A-Ha, who led with "Take On Me" in 1985.
• The song was originally slated for B.o.B's Atlantic Records label mate, Lupe Fiasco. Producer Jim Jonsin, who signed B.o.B to his Rebel Rock imprint, told MTV News that he was responsible for redirecting the record to his artist. "I was actually working on a session in Chung King [Studios], and [Atlantic Records chairman] Craig Kallman called me during that session with that particular track, to work on it for Lupe Fiasco," Jonsin said. "I told Craig, 'I like the song a lot. It's a smash and could be somebody's single. But it's not Lupe's record. I need this record for B.o.B. Please give this record to B.o.B' I guess they went through whoever they went through, convinced whoever they needed to, and it got to B.o.B."
• The Adventures of Bobby Ray debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 dated May 15, 2010. It was the first time in over three and a half years that a solo male artist had topped the albums chart with their debut release. The previous artist to do so was Rick Ross, who opened on top of the list with Port of Miami on August 26, 2006.
• Bruno Mars and Phillip Lawrence of the Smeezingtons told MTV News how they collectively pieced together the music for this track. "Me and Phil always had that hook," Mars said.
  
  "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."
• Bruno Mars told Spin magazine how this song was inspired by '50s doo-wop classics such as The Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes For You." Said Mars: "In my songs I'm not saying something that's never been said before. They have lyrics aren't going to blow people away. It's the emotion and the melody that drive it home. So many doo-wop songs do that, like the Flamingos' 'I Only Have Eyes For You.' I was listening to that when we started writing 'Nothin' on You.' I wanted to get that sound. When that chorus opens up [sings] 'I only have eyes for you,' it's just, 'aaaaaaaaaahhh!' What woman doesn't want to hear that? That's where my style comes from when I'm writing. It's all about the execution."
• Bruno Mars recalled to Q magazine: "We'd always had that 'beautiful girls, all over the world' part. I played the intro part for our A&R guy and he was like, It's a smash, I want it for B.O.B. I wondered who they'd get to sing the hook, but they took a chance on me on that one."
• Mars has been chasing the feeling he got when co-writing "Nothin' on You" ever since it was recorded. Speaking to iHeartRadio's Graeme O'Neil in 2026, he described that day in the studio as the first time he heard something come out of the speakers that he had never felt before, and he uses that emotional standard to judge whether a song is truly special - not charts or awards.
  
  "Those feelings don't come every day," he said. "It's not that easy to get that."