The Curious Case of Soulja Boy..

soulja boy big draco the first rapper to do literally everything the founding father of internet rap he's had an impressive 16-year run still remaining relevant after all this time and when soulja boy entered the game he took over he was the biggest artist in the world then 10 years later he made the biggest comeback in history or did he my name is patrick cc make sure you're hydrated while watching this video in 2005 14 year old deandre way moved to mississippi where his father bought him a computer and a mic my dad he lives in mississippi he was the one that bought the computer for me and the internet for me when i first moved down there he would upload his first creations to the website soundclick i feel like i have to mention this early on just in case but most artists like literally 99 percent of artists were not trying to upload their music to the internet in 2005. most of them were still hustling cds and trying to do local shows to impress a rs and get a record deal soldier was finding websites where people were trying to discover new music back when this wasn't normal he built his first fan base on soundclick it was basically the first soundcloud they had charts of buzzing artists and a trending page and things like that his first real traction from the site came with the song called doo doo head it's kind of a meme song but he hit the trending page and started getting a lot of streams once the traffic became consistent on soundclick he needed to interact with the fan base that he was building this is where myspace and youtube come in soldier said in 2008 really all my myspace views came from soundclick and my youtube views came from myspace they fed off each other he uploaded his first youtube video in march of 2006 yes he was the first rapper on youtube you could still see his very first video among his earliest creations you'll find skits vlogs dance challenges song promotions etc in one of his first videos you can even see him laying down the foundation for the crank that dance he'll probably take credit for it but the dance trend in hip hop was well known and a very established thing but as far as making a dance putting it on the internet and then getting other people to do the dance on the internet he probably started that 2006 was soldier's foundation building year he was uploading to soundclick uploading videos to youtube posting frequently on his myspace and just trying to stay tapped in with his fans his biggest song at the time was i got me some vape which garnered attention from djs and fans around the country this would be the song that eventually got him signed he also generated a good bit of money from soundclick this site would allow people to download a song for one dollar and then the artist would get 50 cents and soundclick would get 50 cents this is an incredible split i don't think any site would give you 50 of the revenue ever ever again it's unclear how much he made around this time soldier said at one point he was getting nineteen thousand downloads per day which would make his daily earnings around ten thousand dollars in 2011 he said the number a hundred grand i generated um over over a hundred thousand dollars with sound click so i think that's probably how much he made from the website but in today's interviews he said he was making twenty five thousand dollars a day but when i was getting money it was called sound click now they got soundcloud and i was getting fifty thousand dollars fifty thousand downloads a day i was charging 99 for the song but they would take a 50 split soldier lies a lot bruh either way generating that type of revenue while being independent 2006 was basically unheard of he amassed over a million friends on myspace making him the biggest rapper on the most popular social media this all built up to spring of 2007 where his career would explode unfortunately i think soldier was always prioritizing feeding the beast and capitalizing on quick money he was making he was a big quantity over quality type of guy i mean to be fair he was really young he was like 15 16 when this was happening it was so easy for him to just put out music and make a quick buck from it that he just kept doing it which resulted in a lot of really bad music crank that soulja boy the biggest song still to this day that soulja has ever made he had been doing the crankthat dance for about a year now so his audience was familiar with it but when crank that soulja boy dropped it was the anthem that the soulja nation could get behind the song was exploding on myspace and youtube people all over the world were uploading their versions of the dance he knew it was a hit he would upload his songs to illegal streaming sites disguised as whatever was popular at the time and i know from first hand experience i would try to download a popular song from limewire and it would just be a soulja boy song it was honestly how i discovered him soldier released his first independent album unsigned and still major the album before the album just a few weeks later soldier signed his first record deal a producer slash dj known as mr colley park saw the buzz on myspace and the massive internet following he had kala park had an imprint with interscope records in which the yin yang twins were signed to soulja was unlike any other artist at this time even kala park thought his page was fake but he already was touring the country and had proof of him doing shows and everyone's singing and dancing along soulja boy was the first internet rap star and inner scope records took a chance on him four months after crankthat is released it had been steamrolling through the internet people were making some of the first viral youtube memes [Music] getting millions of views on youtube before that was normal celebrities were dancing to it the song was massive in august of 2007 an r b group by the name of day 26 did the crank that dance on trl which was the biggest show in hip-hop the song gained 144 000 downloads that day and it jumped to number one on the billboard hot 100 the following week and it would stay at number one for seven weeks in a row october 2007 soldierboytellum.com his first major album drops and it peaked at number four on the billboard hot 200 the highest of any of his albums soulja boy was on the radio soldier was on 106 in park soldier was on trl he was the hottest new rapper in the game he was selling out shows all over the country and at the age of 17 he was living a dream built on the internet something nobody had ever done before one thing i noticed about soldier 2 was he always stressed promoting his myspace youtube or website i mean he legitimately named his first major album souljaboytelem.com and efforts to drive traffic to the site he had thousands of daily viewers on his website he treated his own site like it like it was a social media there were forums and places where people could chat with each other and make friends no algorithms no other content full creative control honestly i don't know why more artists today don't utilize that because it's so powerful he knew social media was the new landscape for artists to build their careers he stayed true to his roots he always prioritized his youtube channel and staying tapped in with his fans showing us what his life was like behind the scenes he also loved video games and would frequently upload videos of him playing them yeah he was the first rapper doing video game content on youtube he kept on innovating trying funny videos cartoons vlogs live show clips skits whatever he could do to engage in 2008 he dropped a bunch of bangers that we all love including kiss me through the phone bird walk and turn my swag on also remember the number 678 triple nine eight two one two well this number was soulja boy's promotional number if you called it or texted it you would automatically subscribe to soulja boy's say now account where he could call or text a mass group of people all at once whether it was to promote a new record or just say hi you know like the thing that every celebrity started doing in 2019 man i'm just gonna give out my number nine one seven seven four six one four four four differences soldier had 4.9 million subscribers on his say now account i got 4.9 million subscribers on my say now number that he could reach with just one text or a voicemail but then putting it in the song and making it catchy so that everyone would sing along this is his most genius marketing tactic that he does not get enough credit for [Music] soulja has now been on top of the game for a year he had amassed over 230 million youtube views something that i haven't even accomplished yet he had more views than columbia records whole page most view of all time and then you look where i'm at i'm number five of all time only person in front of me universal music group mundo media chris brown and cbs crankthat was three times platinum he had sold millions of ringtones and was making millions of dollars he dropped his sophomore album i sold a boy tell him despite having a lot of success on numerous singles throughout the year the album peaked at number 43 on the billboard hot 200. shortly after this album release there was a home invasion that led to soulja allegedly shooting somebody five times i hop out i started shooting bow bow the situation is extremely dodgy there are multiple sides of the story that do not match up at all and there's literally not even a police report that backs or says that this even happened but basically some dudes ran up in soldier's house and he shot one of the guys five times and that guy's name was droop that's the only thing about the story that both sides agree on we don't know why it happened we don't necessarily know how it happened we don't really know any other details and without police reports or evidence it's kind of just up in the air but soldier was known as a positive happy and non-violent artist none of his music at the time incited violence and i'm sure people don't really believe or didn't believe at the time that he was about that life but he was and it kind of inspired him to put out one of the hardest tracks ever called pow where he talks about the situation at the end of the song six [ __ ] and pistols and [ __ ] and he followed this with the song what you know which again was some of the hardest rapping and street talk we've ever heard from soulja boy for the next two years soulja did stay very active with his community he was touring still selling ringtones and dancing all over the world getting co-signs from every major rapper celebrity and media outlet he was selling the most ringtones out of any other rapper he consistently had a popular song on the radio and if you look at his record sales or song sales they're not very high or what you would anticipate them to be most likely because he made his music so accessible i mean he was literally proud of pushing his music through illegal sites so it would only make sense that his fans would do that to him as well if someone were to just look at sales you would think that soulja boy's music wasn't doing well but he was the internet rapper he was the radio rapper he was the ringtone rapper he wasn't the hey let me go buy soulja boy's album type rapper forbes reported that soldier made 7 million dollars in 2010. this is a nice sum of money enough to live off for the next 10 years if invested properly for two years soldier kept on pushing back his highly anticipated third studio album he changed the name three times pushed back the release date many times said justin bieber lil wayne nicki minaj snoop dogg and chris brown were going to be on the album but when it finally dropped november 30th 2010 the deandre way trey songz 50 cent and lil b were the big features and the album sold about 18 000 first week and only about 56 000 copies total making it his lowest performing album i think the combination of this and the home invasion changed him a little bit even claims that he was going to quit music but his mentor and friend 50 cent convinced him not to he did say that he had a falling out with the label that signed him kalapark and that they didn't provide the resources for the deandre way to succeed he said they didn't agree with the moves he was making with his own label stacks on deck money yang and that was a big part of the turmoil [Music] in 2011 soldier toured his album also dropped seven mixtapes all of them with over 20 songs that's basically a song every other day for an entire year the music landscape was shifting the snap era and cronkite era was dying and soldiers new music just couldn't compete with the likes of lil wayne drake wiz khalifa kanye and jay-z who were just running the charts none of his music new or old was really being played on the radio his relevance was just off the strength of the fan base that he built on the internet which was strong in 2012 he dropped seven more mixtapes in two years soulja boy released more music than the entire discography of your favorite rapper some of these mixtapes amassed a whopping 70 000 streams total i don't really know what his plan was but that was simply way too much music this is legit the reason why he can say he was the first rapper with this flow or this style or this beat because he actually tried everything and pretty much released everything he's ever recorded which is a shame because i think if soulja boy really buckled down he could have some really great music some of his hits were made so effortlessly imagine if he really tried anyways 2012 is a weird time because the ringtone era is basically done but instagram twitter and vine were just about to boom social media was expanding it wasn't only just youtube and myspace anymore soldier had a lot of ground to cover but one thing he did do in the meantime was show love to all rappers he worked with waka flaka gucci mane the game shawn kingston yg he seemed to have built good relationships and would occasionally give his platform to upcoming rappers he had a legendary link up with chief keef in 2012 and he also famously put on the amigos soulja boy actually gave them the beat to versace which was their first big hit he had already recorded a song to that but the migos were sitting on a hit so he allowed them to do their thing in 2013 the migos and soulja boy were doing a lot together he does take credit for their entire career which is obviously cap but it's very likely that he got them started and helped them make some good connections he also finally collaborated with drake on the track we made it and produced yes [ __ ] for nicki minaj one of my personal favorites he collabed with a little wayne on the song triggerfinger but 2013 proved to be the last year of relevance for soldier for quite a long time his 2014 started off rough he was arrested for having a loaded handgun underneath his seat while driving through la thankfully this only landed him two years probation he decided to lay low for a while more mixtapes still laying low 2016 he was coming closer to his probation ending and soldier kind of started to bug out on social media a little bit that was about crazy soulja but [ __ ] pull up [ __ ] he started a beef with lil yachty rico reckless shia labeouf chris brown southside young chop quavo 50 cent everyone on the planet y'all thought six nine had beefs soul just started that don't get smoked over a little ass kid beefing over a [ __ ] that i ain't never even met folk i swear to god i'm having 150 shooters in atlanta [ __ ] damn the address [ __ ] waving around pistols and dracos on instagram the judge eventually saw it and decided to do a little checkup on soldier finding multiple weapons which led to an extension of his probation then the home invasion story that i mentioned before went viral because of the way that soldier told it on vlad a lot of people didn't even know about that story because it happened eight years prior and never got taken up legally celebrities were doing the hashtag soulja boy challenge where they copied his story and we're basically making fun of him take the mass off it's just to be shot his ass it would only get worse for him though basically 2016 was just people laughing at him and he dropped eight mixtapes in 2017 he laid pretty low avoiding probation violations he dropped a record low one mixtape which is crazy because from 2013 to 2017 he dropped 20 mixtapes and three albums 2018 everybody knows soulja boy claimed to have the biggest comeback of 2018. the comeback he's referring to is essentially just him releasing two albums and three mixtapes and not violating his probation and not getting the internet to laugh at him for an entire year to soldier that was a win also at the end of 2018 he released the soldier game the soldier game is basically an overpriced emulator of nintendo and sega games couple weeks later he would announce the soulja boy mini retro s which is just a knockoff nintendo gameboy and the soldier game fuse which is just a knockoff xbox less than a full month later after the initial release all soldier game consoles were pulled from the site amidst threats of a lawsuit from nintendo soldiergame.com was seized by nintendo and would redirect to their site today soldiergame.com is no longer a working domain basically nintendo said he ain't gonna knock us off at the same time soldier was pushing the soldier watch a smart watch that looks very similar to an apple watch the soldier phone a smartphone resembling an android and the soldier headphones that look a lot like beats by dre all of this on the website soldierwatch.com soldier watch instagram promoted these products hard what's your boy everybody know what's going on go to soldierwatch.com right now but only for about six days i think some copyright infringement lawsuits probably hit the soldier camp expeditiously the soldier watch website still exists but basically just has a bunch of watches that will redirect you to amazon for purchase i don't know but it would be in the beginning of 2019 where he had the iconic instagram live stream to go viral i said back 2018 i said back 2017 and watch all you lame man rap [ __ ] bro sit down and [ __ ] the whole rap game up bruh trolling and [ __ ] bro nobody knew what he was talking about but something about soulja boy being mad was hilarious celebrities were copying him it was the hashtag soulja boy challenge all over again 2017 i sat back and watched then the breakfast club asked him to pull up and he laid down the most iconic performance in interview history yo charlemagne tiger had a record tiger tyler okay tiger this [ __ ] sitting right here talking about tiger the [ __ ] that lost his [ __ ] to travis scott oh [ __ ] holy [ __ ] they're [ __ ] they [ __ ] that travis scott netted in the vision got her pregnant damn holy [ __ ] big draper damn he showed the new generation how much influence he really had it was almost like the whole internet forgot about how much he really did for the internet rap game he was charming likeable and funny as hell this interview single-handedly made him mainstream relevant again it's soon to be the biggest breakfast club interview in history so he actually made a comeback by claiming he had the biggest comeback of 2018 but nothing really happened after this rapper started giving him his flowers and soulja was embracing all the love he became the internet's favorite meme once again he played into the meme but he kind of failed to back it up with any good music and this would have been the perfect time for it and unfortunately amid all of this hype soulja boy got locked up again with all of his hype and new relevance the judge sent another checkup on him and they found ammunition in his house which was a probation violation leading to a jail sentence he was sentenced to 240 days in the l.a county jail in april of 2019 he did three months and got released on good behavior after he was released he laid really low for over a year so his big comeback only lasted a few months at the end of 2020 soulja boy started twitch streaming and finally learning the new landscape of social media and he spent quite a bit of time on tick tock he was actually really late to that platform but despite being late he quickly figured out how to capitalize on it she may get clap drops i'm sure you've heard it soldier got a hold of the tick-tock wave and absolutely took over on march 15th he put shemega clap on tick tock with a very very loose idea for a dance and 15 days later the app did what it does and made it a mega viral trend and it had over 400 000 videos to the song which if you don't know it's a lot to this day it has over three million videos on the app it's huge and with 31 million spotify streams and the song going number one on trailer makes this song more successful than any song he has put out in the past six or seven years but in true soldier fashion he will rinse the same thing over and over again and saturate his music until people just can't stand it anymore he followed up this song with a borderline meme track called rick and morty ricky ricky morning ricky marty which actually is having some decent success now he's pushing his new track called bop it's incredible how soldier has been able to stay relevant after all this time and i do genuinely believe that soldier has some hits in him i would love to see him have a second run in the mainstream but he's gonna need a songwriter or something to help him either way he's a true pioneer of the internet rap game i respect his willingness to try anything and his ability to beat the odds and overcome adversity time and time again i wish him nothing but health and success for the future big draco soulja boy my name is patrick cc stay hydrated soulja boy

Channel: Patrick Cc:

Views: 2,767,118

Keywords: patrickcc, patrickcctv, patrick cc, patrick Cc:, soulja boy, curious case, crank that, curious case of soulja boy, soulja boy history, soulja boy beef, soulja boy come up, soundclick, soulja boy lies, soulja boy video game, soulja boy first rapper, soulja boy interview, soulja boy drake, soulja boy tyga, soulja boy instagram live 2021, soulja boy challenge, the first rapper, was soulja boy the first rapper, soulja boy documentary, soulja boy criminal history

Id: bJKRqEKH8Do

Length: 21min 26sec (1286 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021