Well, this one was certainly not on our 2021 bingo card: Soulja Boy has announced the latest signee to his own SODMG Records, and it’s none other than Mr. White Boy Summer himself, better known as Chet Hanks. The “Crank Dat” phenomenon shared the news on his personal Instagram account, with a short clip depicting him and Tom Hanks’ son vaguely hyping up the “big moves” to come.
Earlier this year, following a baffling viral clip of him declaring summer 2021 “White Boy Summer,” Hanks released an extremely questionable hip-hop single of the same name — most likely a play on Megan Thee Stallion’s much better “Hot Girl Summer” — under his new rap name, Chet Hanx. (No nepotism here!) In Soulja Boy’s clip, the pair seem to indicate that there’s an album on the way, but let’s just say we’re keeping our expectations low.
For those who haven’t been paying attention — and for that, we couldn’t blame you — Hanks has been giving his best shot at a hip-hop career for quite a while now: His early raps under his Chet Haz moniker date back to at least 2011. But his attempts to infiltrate the music industry have resulted in a bit of backlash, as well; around 2015, he came under fire for his insistence on using the N-word, declaring the racist slur as a guarantee of “free speech.” Perhaps even more bizarrely, just last year, he raised eyebrows by speaking in a Jamaican accent for the entirety of his visit to the Golden Globes. As if all that weren’t enough, Hanks also recently came out as an anti-vaxxer, despite both his famous parents literally catching COVID in the early months of the pandemic.
Given Soulja Boy’s tainted reputation as of late, too, perhaps it makes sense that he and Hanks would pair up. But all press is good press, right, Chet? Right?
