Continuing his elaborate metacommentary on the 21st century couched in saying really stupid shit to the press, Soulja Boy gave a new slew of bon mots to former Idolator guestblogger Jeff Weiss for New York’s Vulture blog. In addition to saying that “everything is going digital” while hawking his decidedly carbon-based shoe line, he expounded further on why he put up the “How to ‘Crank Dat’” video on YouTube, how he’d never actually supermanned a ho, and the metaphysical implications of swag:
You have another new video out called “Turn My Swag On.” What is swag, and how can it be turned on?
I think swag is very important to rappers. It’s the overall appearance and style of an artist — these blue shorts and this blue hat and this $80,000 chain, this jewelry and all these tattoos, that’s swag. Swag defines an artist, period. Lil Wayne has his super-tattooed pierces and dreads swag. Jay-Z has his New York, grown man, Beyoncé and 40/40 Club swag. Soulja Boy is on his dance, down south, young, 18-year-old, comedic swag. It’s really just each person’s personality; if every rapper had the same swag, it would be kind of boring.
Note that Beyonce is now “swag.” I don’t know how wise it is to reduce a woman who’s fashioned her hand into a slicing-and-dicing weapon in such a way, but I guess the guy in the $80,000 chain has other things on his mind.
@encyclopediablack: i am so in favor of both these movements, but moreso for ‘hater,’ because all it does is shut down any possibility for discussion.
i would like to take a moment to thank the slavemasters for bringing my ancestors here - without them, i wouldn’t be able to have my middle-age, holding-my-head-in-my-hands-and-weeping-for-our-youth swag.
While everyone talks about burying the N word, how about we bury the S word (swag) and the H word (hater). I mean when I hear a rock DJ talking about Metallica’s haters, I think it’s time to take “hater” off the respirator, so to speak.
@Maura Johnston: come on now, don’t be a hater hater.