The War On Stupid Fruity Swag (Soulja Boy, "Zan With That Lean" Review)

February 20, 2026·37 min·2 clips

Mel gives Soulja Boy's 'Zan With That Lean' a perfect ten, calling it the last great moment in hip-hop for him.

1. Rap Rankings reviews 'Zan With That Lean' by Soulja Boy featuring Kwani Cash, Track 6 from the Juice mixtape (Soulja Boy's 19th mixtape). 2. Two hosts co-present with strongly divergent scores: one awards a 10 — his highest for any rap song since 2011 — while the other gives a 5-plus. 3. The episode's central tension is whether 'stupid fruity swag' represented a viable direction for hip-hop or was always a dead end. 4. The 10-giving host describes the beat as sounding 'like a Nintendo game' and says he loves the out-of-sync video, the money dances, and every lyric — and listened to it five times before the recording to stress-test his score. 5. He connects the song to a specific period in his life when his friend group was still together before 'life started whooping our asses,' calling it 'one of the last careless eras.' 6. He compares the hope 'Zan With That Lean' gave him to the hope Obama-era folk music gave others, positioning it as a personal cultural touchstone. 7. The 5-plus host resists on the grounds that he is 'not on anything' — meaning he can't relate to the Xanax-and-lean drug combination — while acknowledging the beat's brightness. 8. The hosts argue about whether the problem is drug content (the 5-plus host also dislikes the Playboy Carti/Uzi 'Whole Lotta Red' song 'Stop Breathing') or purely production and tone. 9. They play 'Zan With That Lean' along with the remix and Part 3, with the 10-giver noting each successive version shows 'how dark and disturbed Soulja Boy became' as his production shifted. 10. Part 3 is rated around a 7-minus, with the host attributing the degradation to Soulja Boy actually using Xan and lean rather than just rapping about it — 'he worked himself into a shoot.' 11. They play Chief Keef's 'Kush With Them Beans' freestyle over the beat; the 5-plus host gives it approximately the same rating, saying Keef couldn't save the production either. 12. The 10-giving host blames listeners — including his co-host — for choosing 'diary rap and emo rap' over the joyful direction, calling out Drake's Take Care and Watch the Throne as the turning points that made 'everything go baroque and dark.' 13. He names Future's trajectory (from Pluto to Monster) and Waka Flocka as examples of hip-hop choosing the dark path over Soulja Boy's light path. 14. Late in the episode, one host discovers his version of the tape was missing a J Money verse on the remix — briefly upgrading his score to '10-plus' after hearing J Money rap about guacamole in a 'stupid fruity' style. 15. The discovery prompts a practical discussion about how to correctly label and organize different versions of Soulja Boy mixtape tracks in a personal digital library. 16. The episode also includes a digression about Patreon taxes — one host's tax preparer at Jackson Hewitt warned him that the podcast may be classified as a hobby if it doesn't turn a profit in three of five years. 17. The hosts briefly discuss Schoolboy Q's darker aesthetic as a contrast to Soulja Boy, teasing an upcoming Oxymoron review. 18. The tone throughout is comedic, mock-outraged, and deeply committed to a thesis about hip-hop aesthetics, with both hosts enjoying their disagreement. 19. Rap fans who loved the 2009-2011 Soulja Boy mixtape era and want a full-throated defense of 'stupid fruity swag' as a legitimate aesthetic movement will find a rare champion here. 20. Listeners who don't have nostalgia for the Juice mixtape era or find Soulja Boy's music unlistenable will get little from the core ratings discussion.

As heard by us

A lively defense of Soulja Boy's "Zan with that Lean," built around a five plus and ten split.

Rap Rankings frames Soulja Boy's "Zan with that Lean" as a song that still invites argument. One host lands on a five plus, the other on a ten, and the exchange keeps circling the pull of repetition, attitude, and a hook that sticks harder than it should.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a full-throated defense of Soulja Boy's "Zan with that lean," and this episode treats it like a ten.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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