Soulja Boy - Gangsta Grillz Follow Me Edition Mixtape

When "Crank That" hit the internets and radios two years ago, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em was immediately branded a one hit wonder by haters and jealous fucks worldwide. Not too long after that, "Kiss Me Thru The Phone" and "Turn My Swag On" from 2008's follow-up album, iSouljaboytellem proved them all to be VERY wrong. The album itself was not as much of a commercial success as 2007's Souljaboytellem.com, but listening to it, it is clear that that was a marketing mistake ("Bird Walk" was picked as the first single for some reason). In fact, it was much better than its predecessor.

Gangsta Grillz Follow Me Edition Mixtape shows Soulja Boy continuing to improve. And when I say improve, I mean all around improvements. Not only have his lyrics improved ("I'm official/I'm official like a referee with a whistle), but so have his hooks (the autotuned chorus of "Pronto" is especially great). But the biggest and most noticeable improvement is in his flow. On his previous albums, Soulja Boy tended to keep his flow more or less the same, which, understandably, annoyed some people trying to take in the whole thing in one sitting. Here, Soulja Boy switches it up more, even going for rapid-fire speed rapping that brings to mind rappers like Tech N9ne and Twista ("Pow" and "What You Know").

Soulja Boy does pretty much whatever the fuck he wants on this mixtape. Which is both a good and bad thing. On one hand, it's great because finally we get to hear Soulja Boy freely using obscenities (something that was sadly missing from his first two albums). On the other hand though, there is also a bunch of pointless filler, including a scene (literally) ripped directly out of a South Park episode, and a couple tracks of Soulja Boy, I'm assuming high on marijuana, saying nothing in particular. Also the production quality isn't that great. I think Soulja Boy actually mixed it himself or some shit, which isn't bad. It could use a better mix though. Or some shit. I guess what I mean is I would like to listen to it loudly without all the clipping and overly loud vocals sounding like dick on my speakers.

Either way, for just being a mixtape, this is pretty fucking good. And for a preview of what Soulja Boy's next studio album, The DeAndre Way, it is a good ass reason to be excited. Not only is he steadily improving as a rapper, I believe that he may be on his way to being the best.

Score:
8.7

Ps. here is a link to where you can legally stream and/or download the whole thing.