Soulja Boy - iSouljaBoyTellEm

2008
Interscope Records
Buy (Amazon.com)

4/10

The second song on SouljaBoy's sophomore album iSouljaBoyTellEm, "Bird Walk", lyrically demonstrates a dance of the same name. It involves a lot of popping, locking, snapping, and sliding, but eventually metamorphs into a movement that resembles the famous velociraptor. Its quite a relief to know that Soulja Boy knows that there is an ancestral relationship between birds and dinosaurs. What he doesn't know, is that his career is shadowing the life of a Penguin. Soulja Boy can walk, but he will never fly.

Coming off the phenomenom that was his first album souljaboytellem.com--I mean single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)"--Soulja Boy has been written off as a one hit wonder and labeled, "garage". I agree that Soulja Boy could easily be labeled as a one-hit wonder judging by the composition and effort demonstrated on his recent record. Songs like "Wit My Yums On" and "Hey You There" show that Soulja Boy hasn't learned much about producing or artistic progression since his last album. Repetitious snapping, ubiquitous amounts of call and response, along with obnoxious uncreative lyrics, "Hey you there/Hey you there/Hey you there/I see you ova there", compose 75% of the CD. If you bought the CD on Amazon, that would be $9 of your money! I do give props to Soulja Boy on his song, "Soulja Boy Tellem" which weaves an honest portrayal of himself in a playful, humorous, and most of all coherent manner. He talks about his beef with Ice-T, himself (who else?), and admits that his lyrics are recycled. Honesty is always the policy.

I think a majority of the album is garbage but songs like "Soulja Boy Tellem" and the emotionally empathetic single "I Pray", which tells a tale of his family's strife in the first person--show that Soulja Boy could possibly recycle that garbage into something new, like a better third album. I mean that in a good way. With the help of singer Sammie, the song "Kiss Me Through The Phone" which reminds me of Ray-J's "One Wish", romantically beckons a beautiful shorty in a subtle and compassionate way. This is adds a touch of human to our ferocious Gucci wearing, club hopping, mini rapper.

When I was writing this review my 15 year old sister told me she would rather listen to "Chocolate Rain" on a one hour loop, then listen to Soulja Boy's new album. Ouch!