The Many Weird Sides of Soulja Boy

By Colin Joyce

Soulja Boy bought an airplane last year, which is a strange thing to think given how long ago "Crank That" feels like. But if you consider how damn unavoidable that song was, maybe its not so surprising that it launched a legitimate career, even if it's pretty safe to assume that the majority of the now 23-year-old's earnings aren't still stemming from residuals on a long lost pop song. That aside, Soulja Boy has enough money to buy a private jet, and Soulja Boy has enough money to go three years without releasing a proper album or doing a full scale tour.

So what is it that Soulja Boy is doing? He's finding himself, sort of, and buying jets, I guess. He's trying a million different rappers' styles on for size, Lil B one day, Gucci Mane the next, watering down Waka Flocka Flame on Tuesday, all the while slowly settling in on the characteristics that define what this youngster actually is as an artist in his own right. Over the last few years, the much maligned rapper, has become one of my favorites to watch because even if it isn't all that good all the time, it's still a whole lot of fun and I mean, that's the same reason you all like Lil B and Gucci anyway right? So take a journey, chronologically, through the weird and wonderful world of Soulja Boy, we'll be taking pitstops at each of his strangest moments. There's a lot more to the world of Deandre Cortez Way than meets the eye, and there's certainly a whole lot more than "Crank That."

1.

2. "Wuzhannanan"

Year: 2007

This is Soulja Boy the 17-year-old in full swing. Recorded and released at the same moment that sparked "Crank That," "Wuzhannanan" is six minutes of pure brain drain. That title phrase, a mutation of "What's happenin'" is repeated ad infinitum, the logical extension of the formula that spawned the success of Soulja Boy's greatest hit. You've got the minimal production, a catchy, if ill advised, mantra at the lyrical heart of the song, but sans dance craze "Wuzhannan" proves the tenuousness of early Soulja efforts. Fortunately, Way seemed to realize quickly that the attempting to re-bottle "Crank That"'s lightning could only have diminishing returns. I mean, in theory it should be pretty simple to follow a recipe that only has a couple of ingredients, but he wisely realized that such junk food could tire quickly and launched his career on a series of ever weirder rabbit trails.

3. "Gucci Bandana"

Year: 2008

Let's jump ahead just another year to Soulja Boy's follow-up to that unexpected debut. Legitimized by eight weeks at the number one slot, Way was able to call in a few modest favors for his next record, iSouljaboytellem, including the Gucci Mane-aided lead single "Gucci Bandana." Though still in self-production mode, Way's palette got a lot bigger for the second record, "Gucci Bandana" included. You've got early Gucci and Soulja doing his best to spit like Gucci, and it's… weirdly competent. Whether its the relative maximalism of the instrumental or Soulja still functioning editing process in effect, "Gucci Bandana" works in a way that you wouldn't quite expect. Soulja's bigger name collabs always manage to sound like so much fun, "Gucci Bandana" no exception and though it didn't reach the massive heights of "Crank That," "Gucci Bandana" proved, oddly enough, that Soulja was a chameleon, not a one trick pony.

4. "Outerspace Flow"

Year: 2009

I don't really understand the dynamics of Soulja Boy's Stacks On Deck Money Gang. I guess your major player is Arab, one of Soulja's most frequent collaborators and best friends, but beyond that the inner workings make no sense to me, especially as Soulja's moved to monetize the SODMG name and plaster it on a social network and clothing line. But before the branding, SODMG appeared to just be a bunch of friends goofing off and acting hard, at least as the spastic video for the 2009 posse cut "Outerspace Flow" paints it.

Chock full of some of the most absurd big dumb pun punchlines ever put to tape, the track itself is a showcase of what Soulja being Soulja looks like when he spends a lot of his own time trying to sound like others—to varying degrees of success. Though he allots himself no more than a verse here (see he can share with his friends) he comes off well in the context of his friends. Soulja may not be the most deft lyricist out there, but he's better than his friends which can serve as a reminder that he's probably better than a lot more people than you realize.

5. "Gettin' Money (ft. Jbar)"

Year: 2009

Released just about a month after "Outerspace Flow," "Gettin' Money" was borne of a similar moment, but as a testament to the volatile nature of Soulja's career at that point, it doesn't really sound like it. Far from the strobe light trap that underpinned the former track, "Gettin' Money"'s decidedly more atmospheric. You've got shotgun blasts and shattering glass, but Soulja is slinking rather than shoving the track in your face. With a typically out there and pandering hook from Jbar and a couple of real groaners from Soulja ("I am the shit, dog and you are just dog shit"), this has all the hallmarks of the filler that it takes to chunk out mixtapes with the frequency that he does. Somehow though, those flaws take a backseat to some spacy and dry keyboard plinks and a couple of really solid verses. Even on "Getting' Money," Way's not quite batting 1.000, but he proves he doesn't really need to do so to get by.

6. "2 Milli"

Year: 2010

This is where Soulja’s course starts getting legitimately confusing. Sparked, perhaps, by his burgeoning fascination (and friendship) with fellow free associating rap weirdo Lil B, Way’s production moved from the trickle of his adolescence to a verifiable deluge with six mixtapes over the five month period between September 2009 and February 2010. This cut, produced by a young New Jerseyan by the name of Mike Volpe (who you might know better as Clams Casino) saw release in celebration of Way’s two millionth Twitter follower, and is a big ol’ self-aggrandizing pat on the back buoyed by Volpe’s typically narcotized production.

Though released for vapid reasons, “2 Milli” represents Soulja in the midst of some of his deftest lines. Perhaps pushed by the more complex instrumentals, he manages to step up to the plate much in the same way that Lil B did on a handful of his Clams Casino produced efforts. In the midst of the present and future flood of Soulja Boy related detritus, he quietly dropped one of his best tracks to date. Soulja Boy’s best known tracks are mind-numbing mantras, but “2 Milli” served, for me at least, the first real moment where it seemed that Soulja could fuck around and drop a pretty great record.

7. "Grammy"

Year: 2010

But The DeAndre Way, Soulja Boy’s next official full length (released in September of the same year after four more mixtapes hit the internet) wouldn’t quite be the great album that “2 Milli” foreshadowed. A couple of cuts of pure minimalist pop rap brilliance (“Speakers Going Hammer” and “Pretty Boy Swag”) were marred by a fair bit of fat, including a should’ve-been-untouchable collaboration with the Soulja Boy style icon of the moment Lil B that managed to fall flat.

“Grammy” lies somewhere in the middle. It’s something like Soulja Boy’s take on “Airplanes,” which dominated the radio waves the preceding summer, but with Interscope hitwoman Ester Dean filling the Hayley Williams role. Way remains strangely unguarded throughout the song, he’s an “internet genius” but he just wants to win a Grammy. It’s pure and honest ambition funneled through his usual braggadocio. Perhaps it’s that honesty that drew the Canadian blip poppers in Purity Ring to take to covering this song live for most of last year.

8. "Gucci Wings"

Year: 2011

Though The Deandre Way made a mess of its one shot at a Lil B collab, Soulja would more than make up for the largely squandered opportunity with the Pretty Boy Millionaires EP the following year, a set of characteristically disheveled tracks aided by the Based God himself. And, uh, boy are these tracks based. “Gucci Wings” is a curio in the either of these dudes’ canons, stumbling out of the gates with an asthmatic, sputtered verse courtesy Soulja before it miraculously warps into the gloriously off-key hook. After some unusually spaced out Lil B bars, we get an “I Believe I Can Fly” reference and more shout outs to Waffle House. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard two people sound so stoned on a track before, but man, if you’re going to have wings, they better be Gucci too, right?

9. "Zan Wit That Lean"

Then there was that time that Soulja Boy fucked around and made an unassailable summer jam. Some deliriously technicolor synth parts and a gleefully autotuned Way made this the cheeriest sounding ode to mixing up a couple of different downers in maybe ever. He managed to show surprising restraint in not replicating “Zan With That Lean”’s immeasurably catchy formula across the rest of Juice’s 23 tracks. Though it was a bit bloated, as many of his mixtapes are these days, Juice had a fair number of Soulja’s best cuts to date. Oh wait, the weird part! By some strange confluence of factors, whether due to how untouchable “Zan” was or due to the fact that Soulja’s status as a legitimate pop culture figure had largely waned, it ended up slotted at number 25 on Pitchfork’s Tracks of 2011 roundup. It’s obviously well earned, but color me surprised to see a Legitimate Purveyor of Taste bestowing that honor on young Mr. Way.

10. "Stop Kony"

Year: 2012

And then he just fucks around. Sampling the famed “Stop Kony” video and featuring lyrics that largely follow along the same lines, this stopgap throwaway hearkens back to Soulja’s earliest days. It sounds like it was conceived and recorded in about 10 minutes using nothing more than his beloved Fruity Loops Studio and a built in computer microphone, and I’d say it’s probably pretty likely that’s exactly what happened. Props to him for social engagement or whatever, but now this exists solely as a reminder that nothing lasts forever, not even campaigns on the internet to end the reigns of horrific African dictators.

11. "No Hook"

Well, now we're mostly up to present. Though Soulja's production has cooled off a bit, and recent releases have seen him trend back toward ripping radio rap (Future and Chief Keef, to be specific) rather than indulging in more absolute strangeness like Lil B, "No Hook" from his May King Soulja mixture elucidates some of the ideas he put forth on "Grammy."

Though Soulja in pop song mode (on "Crank That" or "Zan Wit That Lean") has been his most to date, his most compelling is when he eschews those formats for long sprawling labyrinthine vocal marathons. "No Hook" is just that, chorus free Soulja Boy ranting, a based freestyle with two feet planted firmly on the earth and a real trunk rattler of a kick drum for good measure. There's a lot of bullshit you have to sort through as a dedicated follower and aficionado of the Soulja Boy brand, but there's moments like "No Hook" that make it all seem worth it. That and, if he puts out a mixture that really sucks all the way through, you can rest assured that he'll have another one out in three weeks time.

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