CULTURETECHLENSSoulja Boy
VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)
Combined Graph record U-07013 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5747.
Soulja Boy, born DeAndre Cortez Way on 28 July 1990 in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and Batesville, Mississippi, is an American rapper who pioneered the internet-first music career. From 2005 he posted his own recordings to SoundClick, MySpace and YouTube; signed through Collipark to Interscope, he released the debut album souljaboytellem.com (2007), which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. Its single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" spent seven nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, became one of the first songs to sell three million US digital downloads, and was Grammy-nominated for Best Rap Song. Follow-ups iSouljaBoyTellem (2008) and The DeAndre Way (2010) carried "Kiss Me Thru the Phone" and "Turn My Swag On," and he built his own Stacks on Deck (SODMG) label alongside.
Answer summary · this record in brief, from its own record text
Soulja Boy, born DeAndre Cortez Way on 28 July 1990 in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and Batesville, Mississippi, is an American rapper who pioneered the internet-first music career. From 2005 he posted his own recordings to SoundClick, MySpace and YouTube; signed through Collipark to Interscope, he released the debut album souljaboytellem.com (2007), which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. Its single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" spent seven nonconsecutive weeks at No.
The record
- Also known as: DeAndre Cortez Way, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, Big Draco
Notes
Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Census Intake Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 7; first packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Soulja Boy entity in the live graph at 3,443 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5747 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 3 — Famous Birthdays ABSENT census, readiness rank 226 (Rappers list). The census supplied the NAME ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black American recording figure — born in Chicago. Vital status: LIVING — reported social-media activity in October 2026; performed at inauguration-week events in January 2025. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" spent seven nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (2007) and was among the first songs to sell three million US digital downloads; Grammy-nominated for Best Rap Song — Billboard-syndicated reporting, accessed 2026-10-16. MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate: Wikimedia Commons and label/press photography of this subject exists; no file page was read at file-page level in this pass, so no image is cleared — CTL-PHOTO-001; a CTL-created graphic is the standing alternative); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5747-soulja-boy.svg); video HELD (the Shorts Link Map catalog was checked by name and variants — no matching-entity CTL Short exists for this subject; the three catalog string-hits for "Ne-Yo" resolve to Nina Simone and John Coltrane rows, not Ne-Yo billings); audio HELD (no CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio; the subject's recordings are third-party copyrighted material). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging; the subject's own recordings are third-party )
Relationships
- Interscope Records — recorded for
Soulja Boy signed through Collipark to Interscope and released his debut album on the label (2007).
Sources
- Wikipedia, "Soulja Boy" — born DeAndre Cortez Way, 28 July 1990, Chicago; raised Atlanta/Batesville; Interscope via Collipark; discography — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulja_Boy (build store)
- Billboard-syndicated report (October 2026) — "Crank That" seven weeks at No. 1, three million downloads, debut album No. 4 — https://music-world.es/soulja-boy-teases-2028-presidential-run-a-bigger-vision/ (primary source · build store)
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Record CTL-E-5747 · Combined Graph record U-07013 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.
Cite this record
Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Soulja Boy (CTL-E-5747).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5747/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Soulja Boy (CTL-E-5747) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5747/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Soulja Boy (CTL-E-5747).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-5747/
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