Nobody Has Received the Soulja Boy Electronics They Ordered

By Brendan Menapace

Sean Norris, everybody.

For the uninitiated: The rapper Soulja Boy (aka Soulja Boy Tell 'Em), known best for his 2007 hit "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" tried to diversify his portfolio a little bit by introducing Soulja Boy branded electronics. They're all pretty much knockoffs of other, more successful electronics.

His SouljaGame video game system was proven to be an expensive emulator to play other platforms' games. According to Polygon, the console is actually identical to Abernic's Retro Mini Video Game Console, and the handheld version is identical to the company's handheld video game system. The video game system and more were available on the site Souljawatch.com, named after the smart watch product of the same name.

I RELEASED MY OWN VIDEO GAME CONSOLE IM THE FIRST RAPPER IN HISTORY TO DO SO!

— Soulja Boy (Draco) (@souljaboy) January 17, 2019

It seems like Soulja Boy has more in common with the likes of Ja Rule than entrepreneurs like Jay-Z, in that he's really good at making something look nice but not actually delivering the product.

He didn't strand anyone on an island, but Complex reported that four months after purchases were made, people are still waiting on their Soulja gear. The rapper chalked this up to a higher demand than expected. But, that same day, the Souljawatch website went down. Soulja Boy blamed a former employee, and set up shop on a new domain, Souljastore.com.

Here you can get SouljaPods 2 (which are absolutely nothing like Airpods), Soulja Camo Headphones and a smartphone case that depicts him as a "Simpsons" character.

That's it for the electronics. There are other items like jewelry, shoes and socks, but it's a shift from his original electronic offering.

Fans are getting even more upset right now that their emails about refunds aren't being answered.

“My 13-year-old son asked me to order a SouljaWatch for him on my debit card,” a customer named Temeisha told Complex. “I only agreed to order it for him because he gave me the cash that he saved from his birthday. I warned him that I didn’t trust it but he felt good about it because it was from Soulja Boy. We have yet to receive any watch! My son is still holding on to hope that maybe it’ll just take a while. I have no faith that he will ever receive it.”

Complex received about 50 other emails like this. Some brought up the possibility of a class-action lawsuit against the rapper.

One customer pointed out that has pretty much been Soulja Boy's MO for years.

“Back in 2013 Soulja Boy had tweeted out on his official Twitter that he had new merch releasing and that he would be following back anybody that purchased any of his new clothing,” customer Tanner Appling told Complex. “It's 2013 and Twitter had just popped off, so obviously I wanted the follow back from Soulja Boy. Even after tweeting him showing him proof, I never did get a follow back. At the time, I thought that was the worst part about the situation, but then come to find out that I never even got the shirt I paid for. After contacting the email they had on their website several times with no response back, I eventually just gave up.”

Soulja Boy claimed that he made a quarter of a million dollars in the first 24 hours of selling the knockoff game systems, but hasn't given many more details about the enterprise beyond that.

He's still tweeting about buying his products, though.