Soulja Boy's third cd 'DeAndre's Way' sold a measly 13,000 copies it's first week out, and stop if you heard this one before, but it was the label's fault, not Soulja Boy's...
SB tells Complex
“Honestly, I shut down for a week [after my album dropped]. I wasn’t talking to nobody, I wasn’t talking to management, and I wasn’t talking to the label. I wasn’t picking up nobody’s calls. I went like that for a week. I was in a state of confusion. I needed answers. I was doing this concert in Hawaii for my fans and then I was in Hawaii for a week.
“I wouldn’t have been able to go platinum first week anyway, because the label only shipped like 18,000 copies. So I wasn’t able to do gold first week or even 100k, none of that. They only put like 8,000 units in Best Buy. It was crazy. I didn’t know all of that though. I was just going off of, ‘My album’s going to be in stores, so I’m going to promote it as much as I can.’ I’m not the type of person to just be out like, ‘Hey, my label did this and I was in a situation with that.’ But I don’t want to get caught up in record-label-artist drama or nothing like that. I just want to keep everything cool to make music, that’s all.
“Honestly, I had hit singles on that album besides ‘Pretty Boy Swag.’ Like ‘Hey Cutie’ with Trey Songz, ‘Grammy’ with Esther Dean, and ‘Mean Mug’ with 50 Cent. The labels out here, they don’t know what they’re doing. No disrespect to no labels, but I’ve got my ear to the streets. I know what’s hot and I know what’s going to sell, but nine times out of ten you’ve got to bring that to the label, and you’ve got to tell them.
