Soulja Boy

Rapper/Entrepreneur When DeAndre Cortez Way’s father bought his 14-year-old son a computer, he never suspected he was creating a future rap star and multimedia mogul. Soulja Boy graduated from selling beat CDs at school in Batesville, Mississippi to uploading his raps to the social media sites Soundclick, MySpace, and YouTube. He recorded his song “Crank That,” created a dance and a low-budget instructional video to go with it, and watched it all go viral. Within a year he was signed to Interscope Records and “Crank That” was the #1 single in the U.S, later earning a Grammy nomination. Although his rap skills have been questioned by some, Soulja Boy’s defied the one-hit wonder predictions, dropping three hit albums, and being cosigned by industry heavyweights Kanye West and 50 Cent. He founded the Stacks On Deck label in 2004 and won the BET Hip Hop Award for Best Hip-Hop Dance in 2007.