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Soulja Boy

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Soulja Boy, real name DeAndre Cortez Way, is an American rapper. He was born in Chicago in 1990, grew up in Atlanta and at fourteen moved with his father to Batesville in Mississippi. His father gave him a recording studio, and from 2005 he put his music on sites such as Newgrounds and SoundClick, later also on YouTube and Myspace. In this way he built an audience on the internet before a record label knew him.

Music and breakthrough

In 2007 he released the single Crank That (Soulja Boy) himself, with a cheaply made video in which he showed the accompanying dance. The record led to a contract with Collipark Music, a label of Interscope Records, and spent seven weeks, not consecutively, at the top of the American Billboard Hot 100. The debut album Souljaboytellem.com was released in 2007 and was reportedly recorded with only the demo version of FL Studio. After that came iSouljaBoyTellem in 2008, with Kiss Me thru the Phone, and The DeAndre Way in 2010. His music is simple and danceable, with simple beats, short choruses and lyrics that revolve mainly around the dance and the party feeling. Critics were often negative and predicted that he would remain a one-hit wonder.

Influence

What matters most for pop history is how he worked. He used social media and digital marketing early and successfully to make himself known, something that later became normal for artists. After The DeAndre Way he continued independently and founded his own label, Stacks on Deck Entertainment, where Lil B and Riff Raff, among others, signed.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to Crank That (Soulja Boy). Notice how little happens in the beat and how the instructions for the dance are worked into the lyrics themselves.

Discography

Studio albums

Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: Artists