Inspirational celebrity story: Soulja Boy tells ‘em who knows best

August 25, 2009

Soulja Boy

Soulja Boy was just 16 when he bypassed the usual clueless record companies to go straight to his market. He launched his music on SoundClick.com and soon saw some tracks being downloaded up to 35,000 times a day. Listeners loved his music and asked him to create a MySpace site, which he did in 2005.

The attention he gained there landed him a record deal and he then used YouTube to really launch his career with dance videos in addition to his music. His market was still a teen and young adult one and, because he did not have a “bad boy” image, YouTube was just the place for him (plenty of teenagers go there daily).

One of the ways in which he kept a good image was through his lyrics. In one interview this year, he told the ladies of The View that he chose to refrain from swearing in his earlier music because it would set a bad example to other young teenagers. So, parents did not have to worry about their teen children watching him in online video clips. The only influencing he was doing was all good; from his clothing styles to his dance moves.

His story has been one of the rising number of artists using social media to derive an income from digital revenue sources. He now uses a regular record company to promote his music. His efforts saw him spend many weeks on the Billboards Hot 100 singles chart and earned him a Grammy nomination in 2008. Now, of course, record labels are trying to ensure that they can take a piece of the artist’s digital revenue for themselves in addition to revenue from CDs they promote. And all because a kid from Memphis saw the huge potential in social media.

What was one of his keys to success, apart from clean lyrics? In a biography on Pop Tower, he tells a story of his composition book with all his goals outlined for the near future when he was in school. A kid found the book an read it loud and laughed. One year on and all those goals had come true. It is the age-old story: always write down your goals and work toward them.

2009 has continued to be a big year for him and he just turned 19 late last month. What a great story of how an enterprising kid took advantage of Web 2.0!

Links:

Souljaboytellem.com

Soulja Boy Tell ‘em MySpace

Sources:

Social Times

Soulja Boy Tell ‘em Biography on Pop Tower

Written by SuccessMotivational.com · Filed Under Career, Celebrity success, Music