This is a late reply, but as a long time fan of Soulja Boy, I'd like to put things straight and make sure to tell em the message of the Soulja..
No he didn't just start dropshipping or was influenced by Kylie Jenner..
In fact he has been using Shopify since around 2011 and doing eCommerce since like 2008/2009..
Of course regarding eCommerce of physical products, he was selling his music brand's SODMG & SOULJABOYTELLEM merch on his website back in 2008/09 & around the same time he had a sponsorship deal with a shoe brand called YUMS. Well they only sell hats and apparel now. He had his own custom pair of shoes by the brand, which was quite popular back then as bape shoes were a trend, and they resembled bapes + he was the hottest topic in the hiphop scene which was the core audience of bape shoes, so he obviously made a killing..
I mean he single handedly was doing heavy influencer marketing using YouTube and other social media back in 2009 for YUMS clothing & shoes, as that's all he wore from head to toe while constantly promoting it to his fans in music videos and social media. He also did heavy influencer marketing for another wildly successful apparel brand called PINK DOLPHIN, which he had sponsorship deals with..
Another of his eCommerce ventures is a brand called BLVD SUPPLY which has been which is an apparel brand aimed at skaters. He founded it but I don't think he is associated with it anymore as he hasn't promoted it in about 4 years, so I assume he sold the business for at least a few million if we want to do the valuation maths + he did tweet in like 2013 that he made millions in sales from it. Besides BLVD SUPPLY, Soulja Boy has had many minor apparel stores over the years. One of the more popular ones called OCEAN GANG CLOTHING, not big but surely made at least high 6 figures to low 7 figures. And over the years I've seen him launch multiple small apparel stores which are up for weeks or months..
He also has been doing private labeling on some shoes since about 2014. The brand is called SBEEZY LIGHTS, which are just Guiseppe Zanotti lookalikes with lightup soles. I assume that store is a mid 5 figure/month store currently, but it was definitely higher during it's launch..
And he rode the viral wave of the hoverboards in 2015 & most famously got featured on vice after he had $175,000 in chargebacks from scammers. Now imagine how much he made from the hoverboards, during their viral peak if he had that much in chargebacks..
VICE:
https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/...-company-is-a-victim-of-internet-scammers-222
Let's not forget doing crazy numbers in digital eCommerce sales during his peak selling over 10 million copies of his popular singles + like 15 million ringtones & his first album sold over a million copies at $14.99 with 100% profits going directly to him..
Finally Soulja Boy before his hit single was making $10,000 a day on a music platform called soundclick back in like 2007 before he migrated to myspace..
Conclusion: Soulja Boy is not new to digital marketing or eCommerce. He is a pioneer and majorly influenced the music artist fan connection + merch sales via the internet GLOBALLY. And you can only think he's struggling financially if you haven't followed him over the years..
Regarding cameo, if you can get paid $100 to say random shit for 10 seconds, why not lol. DIversification of income streams..
