Soulja Boy, whose 2021 track “She Make It Clap” became a TikTok hit earlier this month, stopped by Ebro in the Morning on Thursday for an interview in which he reflected on his legacy and got candid about his decision to stay away from lean.
Around nine minutes into the extended discussion, co-host Peter Rosenberg told Soulja that it felt like he was “kinda playing everybody” with regards to his multi-hyphenate approach to staying creatively active. As Soulja explained it, some people simply misunderstand his intentions to this day due to previous “acts or antics” in his career.
“I think that I’m just misunderstood. … I think people just perceive me a certain way from previous acts or antics,” Soulja said. “You know, it’s just so much smoke and mirrors with the industry and blogs and stuff like that. So people take what they take from me. But I think I’ve got real fans that [delve] into my catalog and do a little research.”
Speaking specifically on the practice of “trolling,” Soulja said his public persona is an organic one.
“As far as, like, trolling and as far as, like, being in the game and stuff like that, I just do me,” he said. “It’s all organic. It’s all natural.”
From there, host Ebro Darden asked Soulja if drugs were ever a part of his “antics” and—if so—what his current status is with regards to that journey.
“Yeah, I mean I wouldn’t want to speak on that on the radio but I will out of respect for you, Ebro and Rosenberg, and for my fans that’s tuned in,” Soulja said around the 10:18 mark in the video above. “I was sipping lean, you know what I’m saying? I was sipping lean, man. I was mixing lean with soda and drinking it. I shook that. … I haven’t drunk lean in around, like, two years or three years.”
Soulja also detailed what he later realized were the downsides of chronic lean use, including an undesirable mood impact.
“I feel like that’s what was kind of deteriorating my moods and altering my thoughts and kind of slowing me down but I wasn’t noticing it until, like, I completely got off of it,” said Soulja, who was previously reported back in 2019 to have quit lean. “Then I was like, man, I can move faster, I can think clearer, I can do this. It was like I started waking up and it was crazy.”
The 36-minute Ebro in the Morning interview also saw Soulja again stating that Google and Nintendo were trying to buy out his video game company, with the “Crank That” artist noting he’s now “almost making more money from video games than I made in music.”
Elsewhere, Soulja went deep on what he argues is a lack of credit for helping BAPE become an ubiquitous presence in the industry years ago.
“Soulja Boy put BAPE on. Period,” Soulja, who also proposed that he would “chill” on this issue if he were given a BAPE deal, said around 23 minutes in.
Soulja also discussed owning his masters, making classics with Nicki Minaj, his feud with Randy Orton, and more. Catch the full conversation up top.
