Soulja Boy has opened up about his staggering earnings from “Kiss Me Through the Phone,” revealing he was pulling in as much as $100,000 a month at the height of its popularity.
The Atlanta rap veteran sat down with HipHopDX to reflect on his 2008 hit single, which peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Soulja Boy explained how he was making six figures a month, but not necessarily from the song itself. Instead, the majority of the money was generated through fans calling and texting the phone number, 6789998212, which was sung by Sammie in the song.
“We gotta get the number back, man,” he said. “That number so legendary, man, you know how they do. It used to be my number. It actually was my number at a point in time. When I first dropped that song, that was my number.
“Alright, let me tell y’all the real story. Boom. So that number was like a fan line. So every time somebody called that number, I was getting paid off of that shit. It was like a subscription. You could text it or call it, so I was probably making like $100,000 a month off of that, just people calling that number.”
He continued: “So probably after like two years, three years or something, the company that I had the number with, they shut down. So I guess once they shut down, somebody came and got the number, you feel me? But I gotta get that number back though, for sure.”
Soulja Boy went on to discuss the success of “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” and his decision to put Sammie on the hook after originally eying Chris Brown as the featured artist.
“‘Kiss Me Thru the Phone,’ bruh, that song — so many fucking streams, bro,” he said. “It just went so many times platinum like yesterday or something. That’s like one of my biggest songs, too. When I was originally making that record, I knew it was gonna be big, but it was like, I knew I wanted somebody to sing the hook.
“I wanted to sing it myself originally, but I was like nah, I really wanna give it that extra feel. And now I see the success that it got, I feel like I was right.”
He added: “I was trying to get Chris [Brown] on that muthafucka. Chris was supposed to sing the hook, bro. I don’t know what happened though, so that’s why I don’t even speak on it. Shout out to Sammie though, you feel me. He killed it.”
“Kiss Me Thru the Phone” was produced by Jim Jonsin and appeared on Soulja Boy’s second studio album, iSouljaBoyTellem. It’s the second biggest single of his career following his breakout hit “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2007.
Revisit “Kiss Me Thru the Phone” below:
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