He may well inspire a dance that's worth 40m YouTube hits, but that doesn't mean Soulja Boy Tell 'Em is an expert in race relations. At BET's Hip-Hop Awards wrap event last week, the 18-year-old Atlanta rapper shocked the crowd by coming out in favour of slavery.

The shock statement came when BET correspondent and former Rolling Stone contributor, Touré, asked various stars which historical figure they most hated. After Soulja Boy failed to give a response, Touré tried to prompt him, saying "Others have said Hitler, bin Laden, the slave masters ... " at which point Soulja Boy said: "Oh wait! Hold up! Shout out to the slave masters! Without them we'd still be in Africa. We wouldn't be here to get this ice and tattoos."

The stars were answering questions based on the Proust Questionnaire, a series of questions popularised by French writer Marcel Proust. An adapted version appears regularly in Vanity Fair magazine.

"I thought [the Proust Questionnaire] would be a way to get beyond image and into who they really are," wrote Touré on his Daily Beast blog. "Most of the guys gave good, thoughtful, intelligent, sensitive answers."

The rapper's fans have claimed Soulja Boy's youth as an excuse, although many bloggers have been more critical. As 4 Cryin Out Loud asks, "How old was Ice Cube when he first emerged and was writing rhymes for Eazy - like 16?"