Music Review: Soulja Boy

10/01/2007 10:43 AM, AP
Brett Johnson

Soulja Boy, "SouljaBoytellem.com" (Collipark/Interscope)

The success of 17-year-old Atlanta rapper Soulja Boy is a prime example of how to build a novelty act from the ground up.

Long before his hit "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" topped Billboard charts and became a top-selling ringtone, the song reportedly helped him receive 10 million MySpace visits. And on YouTube, a myriad of fans have uploaded homemade video clips featuring their own versions of the song's accompanying dance steps. The track, now unavoidable on urban radio, centers on electro-pan drum plunks, a nearly indecipherable chanted chorus and lyrics mostly about how Soulja Boy enlivens the party.

Now his major-label debut "SouljaBoytellem.com" — an aptly titled nod to his Internet fame — is a largely self-produced collection of similarly rudimentary rhymes, infectious hooks and space-age, synth-heavy beats. Yet the disc is about as formulaic and ultimately disposable as hip-hop can get. He's got the requisite rump odes ("Booty Meat" and "Donk"), product placement jams ("Bapes" and "Sidekick") and dance-move ditties ("Snap and Roll" and "Let Me Get Em"). Undeterred by his own lack of depth, on the album closer "Don't Get Mad," he says: "Don't get mad cause the kids like me." Soulja Boy may have a point: he has a populist's ear for what the most young rap listeners crave: frothy, party-rocking anthems.

CHECK OUT THIS TRACK: "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" has spawned multiple remixes, but the hard-driving, cymbal-crashing rendition featuring ex-Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker is killer.