A-town Rep-razent!

Photo by Bradford Cox

Sorry, jaded white guy who professes to like rap music but can’t remember the other guy’s name out of Mobb Deep, but we love Soulja Boy. Since when did rap music being fun and goofy again become a bad thing? Ah yes, since out-of-touch old men like Ice-T and GZA started getting all grumpy about their nosediving sales and rapidly dimming limelight, that’s when.

I’m talking to all the white music journalists who went to the Wu-Tang reunion show last month and stood by the bar sipping flat Grolsch, trembling at the ten black people there. How come everybody thinks Lil Wayne is still good when his last record was boring? And all those rappers in their 30s doing expensive videos with hookers lapdancing in four-star hotel rooms while a guy from ’N Sync does some gay chorus? Please.

While these muppets desperately milk the shrivelled udder of the album sales cash-cow, “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” was busy selling five million ringtones, making Soulja Boy the richest 17-year-old on the planet. His stripped-back, hook-laden party hip-pop and dance routines are the good-times antidote to the dragged-out sagas of most “major” rap albums that have emerged in the last year.

Anyway, we got our friend Bradford Cox from neighbouring Atlanta band Deerhunter to go meet DeAndre Ramone Way and shoot him for us at a recent studio session (with a camera, not a gun!).

Vice: What was it like having Soulja Boy freestyle at you for a whole shoot?

Bradford Cox:

It was so rad. He ruled and his crew ruled. They would dance and act out what he was freestyling about like he had this troupe of interpretive dancers. They also pointed at him a lot. Like, “Here he is—listen to this guy”.

What was he rapping about?

You know, money, girls, guns and abstract ideas about cars. He also kept referring to weed as “cushington”.

What do you think of his music?

I might have dismissed it initially if my first impression had not been meeting the guy in person and seeing that he was a sincere and generally cool guy, but after a little research I’ve decided it rules. I also think it’s bullshit that all these people are accusing him of “killing” hip-hop. Not that my opinion on hip-hop is really that important or valid seeing as how I am a white kid from Marietta, but if he just wants to have a good time, hang out with his friends, make good music and be successful, what’s wrong with that?

If it had been a speed date how would you rate Soulja Boy?

Pretty sweet. I would say he was a good date, and I’d like to “see him again” or “stay friends”.

JAIMIE HODGSON

New Soulja Boy material will be out soon. myspace.com/souljaboytellem / souljaboytellem.com