Soulja Boy has been speaking more openly in recent days about his effort to step away from lean, a struggle he says has come with repeated setbacks and unexpected emotional shifts. In a clip circulating online from what appears to be a recent livestream, the rapper reflects on roughly a year of trying to stop, followed by periods where he returned to it. He describes a change in how he experiences his emotions now compared with earlier years, when he says the substance once dulled them more predictably.
“I gotta kick the cup,” Soulja told fans, as seen below. “I don’t even drink lean no more, bruh. I stopped drinking lean for, like, a year. Then, sometimes I just be relapsing. Like, a week will go by or something, and just like, it ain’t even [that I’m] bored. I’mma say the truth. I be, like, overstimulated. When I be feeling overstimulated, I be having to pour up.” He frames those moments less as habit than as reaction, tied to feeling mentally overloaded.
Soulja Boy Reflects on Substance use, Emotional Shift, and Stepping Away
He went on to say the aftermath now feels very different from what he once associated with it. “Every time I pour up, I get in my feelings, bruh,” he said. “Like, every time. I used to pour up and all my feelings would go away. Like, I’d be numb to this shit. No matter how overstimulated I got, no matter what I was dealing with, n***a, I’ll pour up a cup, n***a, and just go about my day. Nobody would be able to bother me, and then I could do whatever I want. Now, n***a, I’ll pour up, and then I just be getting sad as a motherfucker.”
The 35-year-old “Crank That” artist says the emotional impact is no longer avoidable, even when his day seems fine on the surface. “I start thinking about just the worst shit you could think of in your life,” he said. “I’m like, goddamn. … That shit just take my mind to a whole ‘nother place. It’s over with, fool. I gotta kick the cup, fool. It’s a wrap. I can’t pour no more, fool. I can’t be feeling like that.” He also revisited the subject in a 2021 interview with HOT 97, where he said the habit had been “deteriorating” his moods. At the time, he believed he had already stepped away from it, though his recent comments suggest the process has been less linear.
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