LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — Soulja Boy, the rapper who started a viral dance craze while still a teenager with “Crank That,” was arrested Thursday for illegally possessing a gun, police said.
Officers entered his Los Angeles home early in the morning and took him into custody after discovering the firearm, a police spokesman said.
Although the United States has lenient gun laws, Soulja Boy is banned from owning a firearm as part of his probation following an earlier arrest.
The rapper was detained in 2014 for carrying a loaded gun after police pulled over the driver of his car on suspicion of ignoring a stop sign.
The 26-year-old rapper, whose real name is DeAndre Cortez Way, was behind one of the previous decade’s biggest dance memes with his debut single “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” in 2007.
The energetic but straight-forward moves, in which dancers shake their arms alternately to the right and left, helped propel the song to number one on the US charts. It became the first single to be downloaded three million times — a record that has since been surpassed.
After several follow-up hits, Soulja Boy has struggled to replicate his earlier success. He has recently been starring on reality television and promoting online poker.
Although it was unclear why police decided to enter his house on Thursday, the gossip site TMZ said officers were responding to a threat the rapper allegedly made online.
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