A 17 Year Old With Alot Of Money LOL
Soulja Boy is celebrating the anniversary of his signing a few months early but he’s also posted videos of a new dance called “Crank Dat Billie Jean.”
The dancing is tight, the new moves are nice, and the remix sounds hot (especially playing out of a car stereo.) But, one has to wonder what to make of SB’s return to making Crank Dat videos. I’m in S. Beezy’s corner but I can’t deny the failure of tracks like Yahh Trick Yahh to crack the consciousness of most Crank Dat fans. Is Crank Dat Billie Jean a return to form or acquiescence to the hype?
In Crank Dat Billie Jean, we see all the trappings of SB’s success: Casper-white Forces, a thick chain (where are the rubber bands?), and a monster sports car in the background. But, these details aside, it’s not much more than a better-than-average Crank Dat video. (What up, Peter Pan? What up, Jumpman?) The very commonness of the vid affirms that the Crank Dat phenomenon far outweighs its charasmatic ambassador.
Making another Crank Dat video should be pitiful. It should seem lame and make SB appear diminuitive - but it doesn’t. Instead, it adds a layer of authenticity to this “17-year old with alot of money” that, by all rights, should have been worn away by fat checks and tour buses. He might be rich but he is still a kid and he still loves making up dances and weird songs with his friends.
In a column penned for the latest issue of XXL, Soulja Boy reaches out to defend himself against the haters and skeptics:
“I was smart enough to think of a different way [of approach hip-hop.] I should be respected for that. I broke the record for the highest-selling [digital] song of all time.
[...]
I was born in 1999. 50 Cent came out when I was around 19 years old, so, for me, that’s like an old-school [rapper].
[...]
When I come with something brand new and different, [older hip-hop fans] don’t know how to take it.
From one perspective, SB is a strange figurehead for a new direction in hip-hop. He can’t rap, Get Rich or Die Trying is the only record he’s ever purchased, and he had never heard of “some dude named GZA” until he saw this diss video back in January.
Step back from the golden haze of the 90s, however, and he’s a lot closer to hip-hop roots than he might appear. Soulja Boy makes no claims about his ability to rap or otherwise elevate the artform aesthetically. He believes he is on top because he is the first person to successfully bridge the participatory internet culture with hip-hop. Check out how he flips realness, the currency of hip-hop, in this January interview:
“There’s no slacking on [MySpace]. I talk to my fans every day. That’s why my fan base grows every day. ‘Cause somebody gonna tell somebody. ‘Yo, Soulja Boy, he real, man, he talk to his fans.’”
Soulja Boy’s REALNESS comes not from ghetto roots, gun talk, lyrical murder, or a crack past but simply because he talks to his fans. Hip-hop history is about innovation: scratching, breaking, graffiti, fashion. Soulja Boy’s contribution is less tangible: it is the style with which he fosters relationships among fans.
Kelefa already hinted at this but it bears repeating: Soulja Boy’s continued relevance might just be an indication that the last few years of crack’n'trap have run their course. We need a whole lot more kids with white-out on their glasses to keep this thing fresh.
Tags: crankdat, dance, hiphop, industry, musicvideo, performance, souljaboy
June 20th, 2008 at 05:40:32 (PDT -04:00)
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Bodyworks Yoga, Petaluma
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