Suddenly, hip-hop can’t hate on Soulja Boy’s swag - 6/15/2009

No longer the annoying, danced-crazed kid in the white-out-splashed sunglasses, Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em has become the reigning manchild in hip-hop’s promised land.  

In recent months, the rapper/producer born DeAndre Way has suddenly morphed from the butt of jokes into one of the game’s most respected and sought-after artists. (Even hip-hop heavyweight Scarface recently labeled him “the next Russell Simmons.”)

But his fame has also brought problems, including a traumatizing robbery in December. Virtually overnight, he’s been forced to grow up.

Until recently, most industry players branded him a one-hit wonder, or worse — Ice-T accused him of single-handedly killing hip-hop. Nowadays they’re scrambling to work with him. Way says he’s in current talks with Kanye West about sharing beat-making duties for the third Soulja Boy album, The DeAndre Way, due out later this year. He says he’s already worked with Diddy and Lil Wayne on the project. And his DJ Drama-helmed Gangsta Grillz mixtape (Follow Me: The Twitter Edition) dropped last week.

“Soulja Boy is the new R. Kelly,” says music industry veteran John “Slim” Pickens, former national director of promotions and marketing for the Bad Boy label. “He’s making his own sound, his own environment. If artists want to visit his people and his audience, they have to come through him.”

The turn of events occurred with astonishing speed. Way had already experienced massive commercial success with his first hit song, “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” in 2007, of course, but that track (and the ensuing dance craze it inspired) reeked of gimmickry. Shortly after releasing his December ‘08 follow-up album, iSouljaBoyTellem, he received a credibility boost from two hit singles, the inspirational power ballad “Turn My Swag On” and the light-as-pastry, yet surprisingly tender “Kiss Me Thru the Phone.”

Way attributes his career breakthrough to having severed ties with his old handlers, Collipark Management, to sign with Violator Management. (He remains signed to the record label Collipark Music, however.) “I just didn’t have the right team with me,” he says. “When I came out with ‘Crank That,’ I used to always think, ‘I’m supposed to be bigger than I am.’”

iSouljaBoyTellem, which debuted at No. 43 on the Billboard 200 chart, got a slow start out of the gate upon its mid-December release because it was rushed out before its singles were properly in place, he adds. “The first single ‘Bird Walk’ flopped, didn’t sell nothin’, and ‘Kiss Me Thru the Phone’ wasn’t even out yet,” he says. “Motherfuckers knew that my album wouldn’t sell shit, but they still let me put it out!”

Speaking from the Manhattan offices of his new outfit, Way is confident, cocky and restless. Simultaneously answering questions while working on his laptop, pecking at two handheld devices and eating from a bag of McDonald’s, he seems less like a rap artist than an incumbent U.S. representative running for re-election.

Of course, no politician could pull off his look, which today features an aqua green T-shirt, matching ball cap and Nikes, propped up on the table. The outfit is completed by his enormous Soulja Boy chain, which he says contains “$100,000 worth of diamonds.”  

Noticeably absent are the oversized white T-shirt, jeans sagging to his knees, and hand-decorated sunglasses, which comprised his old uniform. Now, he says, he’s dressed by a stylist — another illustration of just how far he’s come since making his first million as a 16-year-old kid.

Still, Soulja Boy is only 18 now, and his short-lived journey has been a tumultuous, near tragic one. Following an Atlanta release party for iSouljaBoyTellem in December, he and his friends were robbed at gunpoint at his home. “Somebody kicked in the door. One dude ran in, put the AK to my homeboy’s head, put him to the floor,” he explained to Los Angeles radio station Power 106 not long after the incident. “The other two ran in, and my homeboy jumped in the other room.” In a terrifying twist, two masked men with their voices disguised distributed a YouTube video shortly thereafter, in which they claimed credit for the crime.

“That shit’s fake as hell,” Way says. “Those were just two random dudes making a video. I guess they were trying to get some hits on YouTube.”

Way hasn’t publicly elaborated on the incident, but says it forced him to stay “strapped at all times.” He claims the full story has yet to emerge — “The only people who know what really happened are the people who were in the house” — but that he will discuss it at length on a track planned for his upcoming album. “I have a song that’s going to go deep into that, explain everything that happened word for word,” he says. “It’s going to be crazy. It reminds me of some Notorious B.I.G. type of shit.”

Despite having routinely witnessed violent crime while growing up on the Westside of Atlanta, Way says he has mostly shied away from gangland stories in his songs. “The radio’s oversaturated with rappers talking about getting shot,” he says. “That’s why I rhyme about dancing and having fun, inspirational music, instead of the negative ’hood grimy shit.”

Though he doesn’t intend to go gangsta on The DeAndre Way, he does want to expand his fan base. “I’ve got songs for an older audience,” Way says.

For someone who has come so far already, expecting his audience to grow up with him doesn’t seem like too much to ask.