“Boblo Boat” is the lead single off of Royce’s Book of Ryan album. The song is an ode to a pair of steamships, the S.S. Columbia and the S.S. Ster. Clair, which ran the Detroit River up to 1991. The Bob-Lo boats ferried people from Detroit, Michigan to Bob-Lo Island Amusement Park in Ontario which closed in 1993.

Royce said the following about the boat(s)

It was there until the 1990s and that was like a family vacation for us. All of my memories associated with it are: mommy and daddy getting along, no arguing, me and my two brothers getting numbers. Remember when girls had to write them down. Getting freaky with girls on the boat.

One of the covers is an homage to the park’s logo (seen below):

The single has an alternate cover:

The song finds Royce reminiscing about happy family trips to the amusement park while Cole raps about growing up in North Carolina from his first smoke when he was six to feeling cool while driving his mama’s Civic.

For sampling information on the beat, click here, for sampling information on the intro, click here.

Read the Genius article on “Boblo Boat.”

On July 6th, 2018, the S.S. Ste. Claire, one of the Bob-Lo boats, was destroyed in a massive fire.

Royce reacted to the incident on Twitter after Detroit news channel Local4News shared the story with him.