King of the Internet, King Soulja Changed The Game Forever

As the Soulja Boy World Tour is taking over the country, you may stop to think about how the ‘Crank That’ grammy nominated rapper, real name DeAndre Way, sparked a revolution and shift in the trajectory of music. It’s incredible to see artists who hit the scene in the early 2000s like Soulja Boy, 50 cent, and more continue to be able to sell tour tickets across the country years after their first hit single while some current rappers struggle to sell tickets for their concerts at all.

Soulja Boy arguably is the first rapper to take advantage of the now multi-million dollar platform Youtube back in the early 2000s. He posted his first video over 15 years ago titled ‘Soulja Boy’s 1st EVER YouTube Video!’ that has warranted over 1 million views and thousands of comments dating back to the original post date of March 15, 2006. The young rapper was promoting his Stacks On Deck CD/DVD that was coming soon but shortly after this video he’d change the culture forever.

Around this time, another platform was dominating the very early stages of social media. That platform would be Myspace, where as pre-teens we could code our own website and even have our besties and celebs in our top 8 friends list. What a time to be alive. For those who aren’t old enough or just don’t remember – your top 8 on Myspace was VERY important. It was a key part of your profile because it would tell anyone who came to your page who was most important to you. My top 8 friends on Myspace included the rising star Soulja Boy. Some of Soulja’s earliest music included We Dem 30/30 Boyz, Yahoo H*ez, You Got Mail (I Got), and other trendy music that made you want to get up and snap ya’ fingers. If you can dig deep in your memory, you’ll faintly remember a downloadable app called Limewire. This app, released in 2000, was a free software app that allowed users to share files freely amongst others, especially the sharing of music files. It could also give your computer a nasty virus but it was worth the risk. The now 33 year old rapper shared on a podcast recently how he was able to accumulate millions of streams from the LimeWire app through strategic marketing. The original ‘Crank That’ official video has over a half a billion views currently on Youtube. “When I first started rapping I uploaded that ‘Crank That’ song. And I renamed it like ‘50 cent’, ‘Britney Spears’, ‘Michael Jackson’ and all that,” Soulja Boy states. Then he goes on to share that renaming the popular 2007 hit ‘Crank That’ to songs that were already on the Billboard top 10 helped him accumulate millions of downloads. He also shared how renaming his songs to other popular songs at that time caused users to go look up the rising rap star to learn who was behind this new popular dance song. No Instagram, No Tik Tok, No Twitter, just hard work and hustle. Although Soulja Boy published ‘Crank That’ himself, that would eventually lead him to signing with Mr. Collipark at Interscope Records where they would release the final version of the dance phenomenon song that spent 7 consecutive weeks #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 list. If you aren’t a millennial you may not remember what followed this dance craze including the 100s of new ‘Crank That’ versions that would arise shortly after Soulja Boy’s success. These new versions would include one of the most popular like ‘Crank That Yank’, ‘Crank That Spongebob’, and ‘Crank Dat Batman’ by midwest natives Pop It Off Boyz.

It doesn’t stop there. Whether you were introduced or reintroduced to Soulja boy for his viral “Drakeeee” meme on The Breakfast Club back in 2020 – you may have heard “Soulja on The Beat” before that. He not only wrote and produced his own music but he also produced and has writing credits for some of the biggest culture shaking music of the 2010s. Have you heard Wowzers by Lil Wayne & Trina? Produced by Soulja Boy. What about Yasss Bish by Nicki Minaj? Produced by Soulja Boy. He also has writing credits on Beyonce’s Lemonade album for 2x platinum single ‘Hold Up’. To further stamp his ability to create a hit at any time, he freestyled and produced the viral 2021 Tik Tok sensation ‘She Make It Clap’ that caused many celebrities and influencers to recreate/post the dance done by the rapper. It also caused a ripple of rappers creating remixes to the popular song.

Though Soulja Boy has broken records and birthed what we see today in celebrity vlogging, streaming, and dance culture on popular social media apps – some felt he’d ruined “Hip Hop”. Legendary 6 ‘n the Mornin’ rapper Ice-T did an interview in 2008 calling Soulja Boy out for “single handedly killing Hip Hop”. 15 years later we now see artists and labels following in the “Soulja Boy” blueprint to success. Being criticized by rap legends didn’t stop Soulja’s dedication nor success. After the success of his first single, he would go on and release music that would peak top 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 like ‘Kiss Me Thru The Phone’ and other songs that are staples to the culture: Donk, Birdwalk, Booty Got Swag, Let Me Get ‘Em, and many more. Did Soulja Boy kill Hip Hop or did he cultivate it to open doors for many artists, especially independent, to have a blueprint to creating their own success? The “Drakeeee” meme originator has continuously given us moments in time that one can credit to some of the most fun and lit times of our lives. What do you do when you hear the famous “Donk” beat clap? Run to the floor? Or what about when you hear the 2009 hit Itty Bitty Piggy by Grammy Nominated rapper Nicki Minaj that sampled Donk? Become pigeon toed and yell how you were on the plane with Dwayne? Soulja Boy changed the culture forever – let’s give the iSouljaBoyTellEm.Com rapper his flowers while he can still smell them.