Soulja Boy

You wouldn't know it from reading the headlines but the rapper behind this week's biggest song isn't Kanye West – it's 17-year-old DeAndre Way, aka Soulja Boy. With his song (and dance) "Crank That (Soulja Boy)," the latest sticky-icky club joint from producer Mr. Collipark (Pitbull, Hurricane Chris, Ying Yang Twins), the Chicago-born Way has taken over the Internet and cleared the way for his upcoming major-label debut: SouljaBoyTellEm.com. Yes, dot com.

As a freshman in High School in Batesville, Mississippi – all of three years ago – Way began posting his songs on the music-based social networking site Soundclick.com, before creating his own website, SouljaBoytellem.com, and, most recently, exploding on MySpace where he's received over 11.5 million visits and accumulated 400,000 friends. Like any modern day mogul-in-the-making, Soulja Boy is also a YouTube celebrity. His official YouTube video for "Crank That" has attracted nine million views in just over 30 days while an earlier home video that teaches viewers how to do "Soulja Boy Dance" has been requested a whopping 12 million times.

Soulja Boy's legions of online fans are watching a star in the making – literally, as on this giddy video apparently shot by a friend a few hours after the rapper visited Interscope Records. Way, wearing signature sunglasses (his signature), showcases the price tags on his newly bought sneakers and plugs his "D-Wade Edition" Sidekick as his friend confirms: "he's 16 and he's real clean." Indeed.

see: myspace.com/souljaboytellem