Who knew a phone number could be worth some serious money? In a new interview with HipHopDX, Soulja Boy revealed he made $100,000 a month from his 2008 hit single, “Kiss Me Through the Phone.”
Peaking at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, a lyric sung by singer Sammie references a 678-999-8212 phone number. While generating six figures a month, he noted that most of the money came from fans calling and texting the number. He calls the number “legendary.” “We gotta get the number back, man,” Soulja said. “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.”
Soulja, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, says the company that once hosted the number, unfortunately, shut down, but he is determined to get it back.
The interview broke down the iconic time in hip-hop, with the song leaving lasting memories for millennials. Sammie’s melodic tone floated on the song, but that wasn’t the original artist he wanted to work with. Chris Brown was supposed to sing on the hook, and Soulja even considered singing it himself. “I wanted to sing it myself originally, but I was like, nah, I really wanna give it that extra feel,” he said.
“And now I see the success that it got, I feel like I was right. Shout out to Sammie, though; you feel me. He killed it.”
The track had major success as Soulja Boy’s second biggest song after his 2007 debut single, “Crank That (Soulja Boy),” floated at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks. According to AfroTech, the streaming legendary rapper has had “Kiss Me Through the Phone” streamed over 500 million times on Spotify alone. “It just went so many times platinum, like yesterday or something. That’s like one of my biggest songs, too.”
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