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Teen rapper Soulja Boy building hip-hop empire
Sat Dec 13, 2008 7:48pm EST
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By Mariel Concepcion
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Looking like a spoiled kid forced to sit in on his dad's business meeting, DeAndre "Soulja Boy Tell'em" Way slumps in a black leather chair at Billboard's New York offices, twiddling his thumbs on his two-way. He's distracted.
With BlackBerry in hand, the 18-year-old rapper/producer laughs out loud at an incoming message, then looks up at his best friend, Arab, who is smirking back at him. The two have tuned out the dialogue around them, leaving Soulja Boy's manager, Derrick Crooms, to handle the matters at hand. They are having their own chuckle-worthy conversation via their mobile devices, and they're not letting anyone else in on the joke.
It's easy to dismiss Soulja Boy as a run-of-the-mill teenager, but appearances can be deceiving. His breakthrough was due in part to his Internet fame, and many consider him a Web-savvy business prodigy.
By the time Soulja Boy signed to Collipark/Interscope Records in summer 2007, he'd already garnered a huge online following from his YouTube channel and MySpace page.
"I was one of the first artists to have a YouTube account, if not the first. I joined two months after the site launched," Soulja Boy says. "I faked it until I made it. I acted like I was a celebrity. I was signing autographs, taking pictures, but I had no record deal. I was living the life of a star, but I was just a regular kid then."
Soulja Boy then released "Crank That," the top-selling digital track of 2007, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which at 3.9 million digital copies sold is the third-biggest song download since such data started being tracked in 2003. He's gone on to sell 943,000 copies of his debut album, "SouljaBoyTellEm," making him one of the few artists to sell so many digital singles and also sell a decent amount of physical copies of an album. When it comes to ringtones, "Crank That" has tallied 2.4 million, according to Nielsen RingScan.
"He's a smart kid," Crooms says. "Change in the music industry always comes with resistance, but he handles it all very well. He understands this business more than most grown men I know."
NEW ALBUM
Soulja Boy will use this savvy to promote his sophomore set, "iSouljaBoyTellEm," due December 16 from Collipark/Interscope Records. T.I., Shawty Lo, Sean Kingston, Yo Gotti and Gucci Mane -- who Soulja Boy calls his mentor -- make guest appearances.
The first single, the dance-inspired "Birdwalk," is No. 47 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and has sold 10,000 downloads.
"I'm just beginning to work the song -- it always starts from the bottom up," Soulja Boy says about the so-far modest sales. "People didn't see the groundwork that went into 'Crank That,' they just saw the success and sales. It probably won't take as long with 'Birdwalk,' but it will still take a little time."
The accompanying video was filmed at Morris Brown College in Atlanta -- the same place where the footage for "Crank That" was shot -- during a battle of the bands. Soulja Boy has participated in various battles, which consist of a competition between two bands from two colleges.
"It takes place on Sundays, and we have over 30,000 people out there at a time," he says.
Other tracks on the album include promotional single "Turn My Swag On," where Soulja Boy addresses the "haters" over double-speed drums and a heavy bassline. Chris Brown wrote the boastful "Yamaha Mama," and on second single "Kiss Me Thru the Phone," featuring Sammie, Soulja Boy raps alongside a videogame-like beat about longing for a lover.
He began a promotional tour December 1 that leads up to the album release, and a more extensive mid-January trek is in the works. For the latter, Soulja Boy hopes to partner with fellow rapper Bow Wow, for whom he recently produced the track "Marco Polo." Continued...
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