Soulja Boy
Soulja Boy |
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DeAndre Cortez Way (born July 28 1990 in Chicago, Illinois), better known by his stage name Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, or simply Soulja Boy, is an American rapper. In September 2007, his single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. He produced his whole album Souljaboytellem.com using just FL Studio.[1][2]
Early life
At age six, Way moved to Atlanta, Georgia[3], where he developed a love for rap music alongside his then partner Young Kwon, who taught him how to make repetitive beats and record himself saying the same thing over and over and introduced him to snap beats, according to Way.[2] While in 8th grade, he moved to Batesville, Mississippi with his father.[3] He now resides in Batesville, where he occasionally attends the football games at his old high school, South Panola High School.
Way returned to Atlanta in 2004, after having success uploading his music on the Internet and establishing his record label Stacks on Deck Entertainment, where he paired up with Atlanta-based manager Michael "Mr. Collipark" Crooms, who had been responsible for such successes as the Ying Yang Twins.[3] Way had his first live performance at the age of 15, at a teen nightclub in Indianapolis, Indiana. His first album named Souljaboytellem.com was released under Interscope Records on October 2 2007.[4]
Criticism
Soulja Boy, like many other crunk and snap music rap artists from the south, has come under criticism for his musical style. Similar to those other artists (such as D4L and Dem Franchise Boys), the main criticisms have been that his songs are low in quality lyrical content and have no real meaning or purpose. This is especially prevalent from the "Hip Hop is Dead" movement who think that modern crunk and snap music does not live up to the many great artists of the past.[5]
Soulja Boy has also come under criticism for his sexual innuendo of "Superman dat hoe" which is defined by Urban Dictionary as "when you ejaculate on a girls back then put a blanket on her so when she stands up the blanket sticks therefore making her look like she has a cape."[1] Despite that his songs are in rotation on Radio Disney, although his songs on that station are edited and clean.
Nobodysmiling.com said, "Think of Soulja Boy as sort of a Lil Jon for teenagers and pre-teens, that means don’t expect to hear much in the way of metaphors and narratives, just crunk-ass music."[6]. The Daily Yo also says, "If anyone has not yet embraced the fact that hip-hop, through a main-stream perspective, is a dying breed; after listening to the musical styling of Soulja Boy in his debut album, Souljaboytellem.com., I'm sure that the truth will become evident." [7]. The Review says "Soulja Boy seems to think irritating repetition mixed with loads of moans and groans are enough to replace any skillful presentation of words.", and "Soulja Boy, making no effort to persuade his audience otherwise, offers little diversions from stereotypic garbage rap lyrics."[8] Many other critics dub Soulja Boy the "Nickelback of hip hop".[8] Although his debut album, Souljaboytellem.com, had a somewhat positive review (All Music Guide gave it 3.5/5 stars[9]), in general it has not been received well by critics. TheDailyYo gave it 1/5 stars[10], 411Mania 3/10[11], NappyAfro 1/5[12], Okayplayer 1.5/5[13], Rap Reviews 3/10[14], and The Review 0.5/5[15].
Further criticism of Soulja Boy came from rappers and others within the business. In an October 18, 2007 article on Yahoo.com, rap veteran Snoop Dogg was quoted as saying, about Soulja Boy and other new rap artists (such as those aforementioned) "They're not making substance material — they're not really going into creating a sound. It's all about making the hot song for right now, but the artists who will stand the test of time like myself are about making records, not songs. You got to make a quality album so you can hold people's attention. It's like a movie. If you make a movie that got (only) one good scene, ain't nobody gonna go see it." Jermaine Dupri added "That's just a business mind-set for the record companies ... instead of artist development, they're looking for that. It makes the record companies not want to artist-develop the groups anymore because that's what they're into — they want to try and sell as many ringtones as possible." Even rapper 50 Cent said "Right now the state of where we are at in hip-hop, it's different. I don't think they want the lyrics to be complex — they want it to be simple, catchy. The Southern-based artist can be credited (with) that, because they're dancing, so now your record has to pretty much be catchy. It doesn't have to be super content, extreme content. It has to have a good rhythm to it and dance."
However, Soulja Boy himself has tried to somewhat combat some of the criticism. In the same interview he said that lyrical complexity and high content in his songs is not something that potential buyers of his music are interested in. He says "People don't want to go to a club and hear (about) people getting shot or hear about your life story. People want to ... have fun and dance and party." [16].
He is often criticized because he produced the entire album using FL Studio.[citation needed]
Discography
Albums
Singles
| Year | Title | Chart positions[17] | Album | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. | U.S. R&B | U.S. Rap | CAN | N.Z. | UK | |||
| 2007 | "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 24 | Souljaboytellem.com |
| "Soulja Girl" (featuring I-15) | 36 | 13 | 8 | - | - | - | ||
References
- ^ "Rap City" (September 2007). BET.
- ^ a b Soulja Boy Official Soundclick Profile Cite error: The named reference "soundclick" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ a b c Cordor, Cyril. Soulja Boy biography at All Music Guide
- ^ Artist Biography/Interview Biography October 15 2007.
- ^ http://blogs.sohh.com/atlanta/2007/03/top_5_reasons_w_1.html
- ^ http://www.nobodysmiling.com/hiphop/album_review/88001.php
- ^ www.thedailyyo.com
- ^ a b Soulja Boy Tell 'Em - 'Souljaboytellem.com' reviewed
- ^ http://wc01.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wifixz8hldae
- ^ http://thedailyyo.blogspot.com/2007/10/album-review-soulja-boy.html
- ^ http://www.411mania.com/music/album_reviews/60943
- ^ http://www.nappyafro.com/SouljaBoyTellemcom-review.html
- ^ http://www.okayplayer.com/reviews/index.php/weblog/more/souljaboytellemcom/
- ^ http://www.rapreviews.com/archive/2007_10F_souljaboytellem.html
- ^ http://media.www.udreview.com/media/storage/paper781/news/2007/10/02/Mosaic/Soulja.Boy.Tell.em.souljaboytellem.com.Reviewed-3004601.shtml
- ^ http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/50674023
- ^ Artist Chart History. Billboard. Accessed October 9 2007.