BOSTON -- After a viral video rise to fame that led to a record deal, Boston's own Sam Adams returned home Friday night for a sold-out show.

That's pop and hip-hop star Sam Adams (born Samuel Adams Wisner), rather than the famous colonial statesman whose name he has adopted.

Adams is celebrating the physical deluxe release of his debut EP, "Boston's Boy," with a concert Friday night at the House of Blues Boston.

The concert comes on the heels of two sold-out concerts in New York City earlier this week.

"Boston's Boy," which debuted at No. 1 on the iTunes hip-hop digital albums chart and hit No. 2 on the overall iTunes chart, was previously only released in digital format.

A Cambridge native, Adams graduated from Wayland High School and currently attends Trinity College, where he captained the soccer team this past year.

His age in relation to his target fan base of college students is a big reason why many enjoy his music so much. As one of their own, Adams' promoters say he's able to make music that he knows his peers will be interested in.

However, his career didn't really take off until late last year, when a video of his song "I Hate College" -- a remix of Asher Roth's hit "I Love College" -- suddenly went viral on YouTube. It has been viewed almost 3 million times to date.

Adams' newfound popularity allowed him to mainly self-produce "Boston's Boy" on an independent label called 1st Round Records. The album managed to sell almost 8,000 digital copies on iTunes in its first week, which outsold industry heavyweights such as Lil Wayne and DJ Khaled.

Additionally, when the video for lead single "Driving Me Crazy" leaked online, it was viewed over one million times in less than 24 hours.

Much of this success can be attributed to not only the Internet, but also possibly to Adams' innovative use of it.

Following a strategy uncommon among new musicians, Adams has by and large let go of MySpace to focus instead on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Fame, however, has not come without controversy.

Soon after Adams' sudden appearance on the charts, rumors began to fly that many of the digital copies sold on iTunes were, in fact, directly bought by Adams and his team.

Adams has denied these claims, and data from Nielsen SoundScan seems to back him up. Sales of "Boston's Boy" came from more than 100 markets nationwide, and no one market outside of Boston and New York accounted for more than 5 percent of the total sales.

In the end, the web site that initially made the claim about album sales eventually retracted its story.

Next up for Adams is the release of a mix tape within the next two months, followed by a full-length album by early 2011.