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Crank Dat Stereo(type) Up: an analysis of a brutally bad song

One of the more ubiquitous pop songs of the past month was Soulja Boy’s rap hit “Crank Dat Soulja Boy.” The song, heard primarily on radio and basic cable television in its edited version, is a self-aggrandizing hip-hop track that cares to offer little to the listener beyond the beguiling dance hook. It is in fact an empty song. The repeated refrain of “Superman dat hoe” (“superman dat ‘oe” in its edited version) is seemingly (if only) nonsensical. The remainder of the lyrics lack any reason beyond their rhyme. Soulja Boy does not pretend to be a rhymesmith , repeating a handful of grammatically garbled phrasings through the course of the song. But what is said is stunning in its vulgarity once the song is studied closely.

Soulja Boy typifies a stereotypical young, black archetype in his posturing as he espouses his undisguised misogyny. The popularity of the song suggests an affinity between its messages and the public’s ideological viewpoint. Soulja Boy represents the noveau riche young, black, rap superstar, particularly in the way he unironically makes his claim to fame before his fame even came. A common trope for this style of rapper is the vocal pronouncement that the he is without flaw and worthy of the listener’s full attention, respect, and jealousy. He’s “jocking on them haterz, man.” Like most unknown pre-superstar rappers, he has his share of haterz. This presumptuous swagger seems to be drawn from the urban world from which most rappers are drawn, where a man needs to puff out his chest and voice his demands if he wants to make it. It also reflects the cultural importance of money, power and respect. Interestingly, Soulja Boy doesn’t just hype chains (“they be looking at my neck”, he notes) and the like, but also his Bathing Apes, the high-end Japanese clothing and shoe brand. For this, “haterz get mad.” And that’s something the stereotypically materialistic black man can take pride in.

This openly dumb, materialistic, machismo-laden posture borders on buffoonery. Soulja Boy is non-threatening and somewhat comical. This image calls up a stereotype of the young black man as heathen fool that dates back to America’s Antebellum. His song is more novelty than song, being basically a how-to-manual on his eponymous dance. Oddly though, when the listener tries to dance like him he tells them “that shit was ugly.” The rapper is comically vulgar and is re-enforces an unfortunately too common image of young black men.

The song for all of its goofiness is a shout-out to the sexual degradation of women and the treatment of the female form as a play-thing for men. The seemingly benign innuendo “superman dat hoe” refers to a very specific sexual act. The act utilizes bodily fluids to adhere a bed sheet to the back of a sleeping woman. Through the verses the line morphs into the alternate, more pointed “supersoak dat hoe” before concluding the song as “superman that bitch.” This last line is repeated five times for maximum effect. This is not the only instance of the juvenile objectification of women. In the first verse Soulja Boy threatens his hater not only with “jocking on [his] bitch ass” but later with “cocking on [his] bitch” in an apparent attempt to cuckold and emasculate his imaginary opponent.

The song, while festive and jovial in tone is drenched with self-important masculinity. The rapper plays into the minstrel stereotype of the young, virile, comically non-threatening black man while openly denigrating and objectifying women. Both black men and women become victims to an overbearing ideological worldview that presents such a song as innocent entertainment.

Crank Dat.

Because number three thinks you're a cunt!

#3 - Ghost World

I couldn't believe how well this movie replicated high school. It's funny, because I watched this movie before I even entered high school. It's so easy to hate the kids who were fond of high school. Why would you want to go through those miserable years yet again? Anyway, I'm getting off track.

I think this film had it all going on. There wasn't one thing really at fault here. The jokes were witty, it had that dude from the Red Hot Chili Peppers video, AND a joke about tight cracks and small holes! Not to mention that Enid was a role model for me during those horrible four years of my life which I don't want to speak of.

At the end of the film, you really form a bond with all the characters no matter how miserable, off-putting, or just plain crazy they are.

And number four goes to...

#4 - Amélie

Anyone who tells me they don't like the movie Amélie obviously loves being depressed. It's a feel good movie that men, women and children can get into. Doing random acts of kindness for the lovely people in France is something that I can definitely get into. Not to mention the vivid colors and imagery in this picture uplift you. You can't escape it!

Anyway, how can you resist the sweet beauty of Audrey Tautou? Sometimes she doesn't pick the best roles in the world to play, but her presence on the screen is so electrifying that you can forgive it.

Rigid Placidity, an opening volley of grafs

There once was a land. On and of, atop and abounding, there once was a race. This race was much like ours - ape-evolved bipedal cultivators of civilization and division and such - but for one peculiarity (from our vantage at least). This race of humans (for lack of a better) fell to sleep once still. Being perfectly still, rigid, motionless was necessary and sufficient for sleep. Consider it, lying down, back, attaining stillness. The second the body is without movement, devoid of even the slightest tension of a muscle here or a reflexive wiggle of the toe there, *snap* sleepy times.

The rub? Anytime a member of this race sits perfectly still for any reason *snap* they go, and the sleep of this peoples is shamefully deep.

Oh, the race had evolved to manage. To thrive even, the teeming masses of them. The will to lie still is strong. As well the urge to keep movie, shark-like. Never sitting still. Always tapping toes, rolling quarters along the knuckles. Snapping a finger to the beat of your own heart. This was an expressive, physically fervent people.

One day a traveler appeared. She was a stranger, an astro-anthropologist. My dear aunt Susie. She had been exploring the galaxy for over a decade and was thrilled to have finally come across an honest to god civilization, even one so unnervingly familiar.

Aunt Susie explored the hell out of their land, anthopologized the hell out of the people, just got all the hell up in it until she was one of them. They didn't have much interest in strangers until she showed up. Now she was among their cultural elites, hosting coffee breakfasts and tea brunches and wine-filled lat evening dinners for the statesmen and philosophers of this people. Within ten years she was married into them.

Their first child was ...TO Be CONTINUED....

Cinq

#5 - Kill Bill Vol. 1

This was the first Quentin Tarantino film I saw, yet I probably saw an hour of it. During that time period, I had a thing with seeing blood on the screen, so I closed my eyes for a good chunk of the time. I remember being so obsessed with this film, and went back to QT's roots -- Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, and From Dusk Till Dawn (Sorry folks, but I love that film)!

I watched Vol. 2 the day it came out. It was very dialogue based, but it didn't have the same impact as Vol. 1. I began to say "I'm going to go 'Kill Bill' on yo' ass!" shortly after watching this, and to this day I still continue to say it to people who piss me off.

A Sleep Lyrics; Crows Can Trollop

I sing songs as sung by drunk men
I carouse and I confuse,
myself

I ain't not sure I ain't not yours anymore
I ain't not sure I ain't sure
not and a more

I drink stories as drunk by strange men
cruisin' I confound.

my sloth.
Wasted my time for the last time, brain's on a third trime
ready to abort it.
Bested my time for the first time, anything less, 1.secondpointnone to the best
would be cream and all

I tranquilize while drunk men festilize
I trank and I tries.
my flies

open door clothes closet, ready up, ruddy up,
make it up, face 'rupt, ready o
knot shoes, tie tie, open door, greet sky, close door
dance floor

I'd rule everthing around me, dream
god's to wake up,
I clash, I titans
my gawd golly might

Dolemite, just because
I can found a lot of things if I've got nothing
better to do
it soon

I carousel and confuse and I myself
sleep again

Thoughts And Whatnots, Premiere Edition

I'm not ashamed to admit that I like Lady Gaga. I don't believe in Guilty Pleasures. I say without guilt that I like Lady Gaga. I like Rihanna too. I like that one song by Grizzly Bear but I hate that one song by Phoenix. I hate all songs by Animal Collective. Everything is Dance Pop. Indie Rock is dance pop. Lil' Wayne should have jumped on that bandwagon.

Luna's Tics

Sooner later stars suns, centauris and like may might manage to mangle by force of their light,

will strangle earth terrestrial with Satan's photonic might,

will derange Gaia's children with overexposure to bright,
will suffocate our atmosphere but not without a fight, la la la

Somethings, ch. 1, section A

Used to play guitar to keep my head settled straight. Unkind for a kid of what, was I 12? 11? having such a need but chemicals all wrong. Percolating incorrectly, triggering the wrong sympathetics or something to that effect, like a nervous cop. Itchy triggered. Needed to keep my head straight. All better now. All the best.

My parents were in college bands vamping out Tom Petty The Cars Blondie type riffs when they made me, or so they say. Me playing the guitar was thus important to them. Or so they say. So I still play it and it's part of me and so on. I musn't belabor the point.

It's good it's great but it don't fit on a plate.

Sometimes I focus so hard, so naturally to the point where there's no intent, no focus at all really, that I get this headache. It's my teeth. I grit them and never notice until my whole head hurts. I rock back and forth and focus my totality and play my songs and think my thoughts and I feel my head hurt. My teeth hurt. Gritting idiot.

A song doesn't need much but a hook. Any kind of hook. There's technical defined things called a hook, yeah? Think so, but I'm talking metaphorical hooks. Like that in Girls' "Lust for Life" where whiny singer tauts his voice diagonal like a sneer - "...cra-zy..." - or that greased twinge George Harrison spits into that lick in "Hold Your Hand". Latter that, that's quasi perfection so if that didn't hook me in melody could, harmony could, voices could; but the Girl's song is but awful but for a hooks. So I love it so. Want to write a hook, a hanger to hang my songs upon. And then.

Living under bridges isn't easy, but it isn't either hard or rough neither. It's day by day going past every day. Keeping fed, and keeping head set, that's a responsibility but only responsibility I've got or need. It's what I've always wanted or needed. Freedom. Nothing left to lose. Kris Kristofferson is a gnarly looking dude but he is gnarly and awesome. Categorical genius type Rhodes Scholar and such and he was mopping floors at Sun Studios just because he had nothing better to do. And he loved music. Got to meet Johnny Cash that way. I wanna be an iconoclast when I grow up.