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Soulja Boy Gives Financial Advice to Teenagers

By Lawrence Watkins on May 6th 2010 11:02AM
Filed under: Professional Profiles, Celebrity Finances, Personal Finance, News

Comments (27)

The rapper Soulja Boy is set to release a new book on how he became a teenager millionaire. The rapper believes that the book can inspire other young people to learn how to find their way from rags to riches, the same way that he did. The book is going to be called 'Teenage Millionaire,' and chronicles his rise to fame and fortune as a young man.

"I made my first million dollars when I was 16 years old," Soulja Boy told Billboard. "I came from a place where a lot of people don't make it out to see the type of things I've seen around the world and see the amount of money that I've obtained. I just wanna tell all the people how I did it."

Some think that Soulja Boy is the wrong person to be giving financial advice to teenagers, since most aspiring rappers never get a record deal. The industry is not just about how good you are, but who you know and whether you get lucky enough to get signed. Also, Soulja Boy didn't own the company that pays him today; he is actually a highly paid employee of someone else. This, added to the fact that he never got any formal training in the field of business, makes this book a risky proposition.


But there is another argument that Soulja Boy had to work hard to be successful, and that his techniques of visualizing success might actually work. The best part of the book is that it will encourage other black teenagers to read. The downside is that it continues to encourage black teenage men to want to become rappers or athletes, which leads many of them into financial devastation.

Soulja Boy's financial advice came under fire from my brother Dr. Boyce Watkins, a finance professor at Syracuse University. In his article, Watkins criticized Soulja Boy for bragging about owning a diamond-laced remote-control car that he put around his neck. The necklace cost several hundred thousand dollars and appears to be a waste of money. Usually when seen in public, Soulja Boy has a great deal of jewelry on him, which is not the best use of his personal funds.

But then again, he is 19 years old, and most of us didn't make sound financial decisions when we were that age. But what Soulja Boy needs to realize is that no matter how much money you have, it can disappear in a flash if you do not manage it properly. Also, most of us don't know if Soulja Boy's financial success is due to his own wisdom or from him having a good business manager. I wonder if his book is going to sell as well as his albums. Probably not.

Lawrence Watkins is the CEO of the Great Gospel Speakers Bureau. To get more information, please visit LawrenceWatkins.com

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