albums and tracks

Editor's rating

18-year-old rapper/producer Soulja Boy Tell 'Em has been derided by his more credible hip-hop contemporaries, categorised as a one-hit-wonder and written off by most music fans for his gimmicky hip-hop that's often only a few bars short of disastrous.

Yet he's on his way to album number three in the US, since topping the charts when he was unsigned in 2007 with the Grammy-nominated 'Crank That (Soulja Boy)'. So what's his secret? Judging from this scaled-down UK release of second album iSouljaBoyTellem, he has no shame in pimping the commercial viability of pop-rap for all it's worth.

This version offers the better 50% of the project released in the US last December, and if you can survive squeaky ringtone beeps, monotonous choruses, and iffy sing-song delivery, you might actually go in search of this album's other half.

Otherwise, expect mindless party music for people who may not know better and don't really care. There's 'Kiss Me Thru The Phone', a catchy but corny slice of r'n'b and the brash 'Bird Walk', which evokes images of a dance craze as bad as Webstar and Young B's 'Chicken Noodle Soup'.

Elsewhere, 'Yamaha Mama' is his electro-powered attempt at an up-tempo serenade and 'Gucci Bandanna' opts for snap-style minimalism while boasting about designer tastes. Mercifully there are only six tracks here. As much as Soulja Boy Tell 'Em talks a good game on numbers like the triumphant 'Turn My Swag On', the fact that swag is UK teen slang for terrible ironically sums up this unfortunate affair.

Matilda Egere-Cooper