Anime Fan Soulja Boy Names Death Note as his Favourite

Self-styled legend - and otherwise styled Father of Modern Rap Music - Soulja Boy has come out as an anime fan in an interview today with magazine Complex UK.

The US singer is known for classic hip-hop hits like Crank That (Soulja Boy) and Turn my Swag On; platinum selling albums such as Souljaboytellem.com; as well as films about his life Soulja Boy: The Movie, and television documentaries concerning the same, as in the current Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood.

He was in Complex UK discussing his new album Stacks on Deck, which came out on March 15th 2016.  Yet somehow the conversation turned to anime in general, and Death Note in particular.

“You ain’t ready for this,” Soulja Boy tells me. He’s wrapped in a tight white t-shirt, elegantly ripped Robin’s Jeans, and a small, tasteful chain. His blunt, thick and taut, resembles a pterodactyl’s leg in a land before man, modernity, and swag. We’re sitting in a Burbank studio, a few blocks from the Disney and Warner Brothers lots. I tell him I was born ready.

“We gon’ start it off like this. Bam!” he says, and begins rattling off his favorite anime films. “Naruto. Cowboy Bebop. Death Note. Full Metal Alchemist. Akira.” In Japan, there’s a word for rabid anime fans: otaku. I am not even a tenth the otaku that Soulja Boy is. “Death Note, that’s my favorite one. You ever seen it?”

“No,” I say, meekly. I’m certain that Soulja Boy is about to be upset with me pretending I was born ready for this. I was in no way, shape, or form ready to talk about anime with Soulja Boy. I have failed myself. More gallingly, I have failed Soulja Boy.
~ Soulja Boy is the Father of Modern Rap Music by Drew Millard (Complex UK March 18th 2016)

Soulja Boy is the Father of Modern Rap Music
- Interview by Drew Millard
(Screenshot March 18th 2016)

He actually sounds a little Kira-esque too in the back-story provided by the magazine feature.

There's talk of him starting out at seventeen and appearing Christlike to his followers.  Changing the world of hip-hop and rap forever. Writing his own Fate, at least on-line, via Wikipedia with his lines of destiny coming true as Soulja Boy hustled himself into mega-stardom through careful hacks and self-penned publicity.

Not quite a Death Note wielding God of this New World, but you can't help wondering who inspired him at 17 back in 2006.