Soulja Boy, who has had his fair share of experiences in the streets and in the rap game, is hoping to get through to new and aspiring emcees. The “Squid Game” star issued some advice to rising rappers when responding to a question about his current favs in the industry.

“I got favorite new rappers, but they be getting locked up,” he told HipHopDX. “Free the young talent, man. We got to keep our new talent out the streets. Every time I find a new rapper, they getting locked up. So free the young rappers, man. I know it’s hard in the streets, but you can’t be in the streets and be a rapper at the same time. You got to separate it.”

“To everybody that’s out there listening, man, if you want to be a rapper and take it seriously, you can’t have one foot in and one foot out, man,” he continued. “You got to have both feet in, man. You know what I’m saying? A lot of people want to be in the streets and rap at the same time, which is what the people want because it’s our life story.”

“But once you get that chance where you can see that your platform is elevated from the streets now, when you got millions of eyes on you and you got millions of dollars in revenue, you got to switch it up,” Big Draco said. “So it got to be a point where you just got to get out the streets. A lot of artists want to stay in the streets, and it’s hard. I would want to be in the streets too, but I can’t be in the streets and be an actor and be No. 1 at the box office. I can’t be in the streets.”

Soulja Boy‘s advice comes days after he clarified that he was putting aside all beefs to focus on his acting career.

“I ain’t got no beef with nobody,” he said. “I ain’t got no smoke, no problems, no nothin’. All I’m doing is TV show and movies, I’m a[n] actor now.”