Dear music industry,
Recently, there have been some horrendous sounds coming from the bathroom in my dormitory. A late night trip to the restroom revealed to me the source of this problem: speakers hooked up to an iPod belonging to someone whose iTunes library apparently contains nothing but rap music. After discovering this, I also realized that one particularly annoying song, which Google has informed me is called “Crank Dat Soulja Boy,” has become very popular not just in my bathroom, but everywhere. I can’t walk around campus or go to the mall or do much of anything without hearing people singing about cranking dat Supaman.
Despite the widespread popularity of this song, I had a difficult time deciphering the words. My Google search proved useless here, as after reading the lyrics, I still had no idea what the words actually meant. Never have I heard “Superman” in this context before. I thought Superman was just a fictional character, and I’m not sure when the word became a verb. At this point, I turned to Urban Dictionary to help me. What I’ve learned is that when you “superman dat hoe,” you ejaculate on a girl’s back and attach a sheet or blanket to her so that it sticks like a cape. Apparently, this is how to “put a bitch in her place” if she refuses sexual activity, which somehow makes her a “hoe.”
I’m slightly confused by this message. First of all, the song contains the words “soulja boy” in the title, which I’m told should be read as “soldier boy.” Does the rapper mean to imply that soldiers are sexist, horny bastards who have no respect for women? Or does he mean to give off a more respectable image by implying that his disgustingly sexist ideas make him a strong role model for boys? I’m also confused about the spelling of “soldier.” Since when is there a ‘j’ in there?
From the message of the song to the music itself, which sounds more like a lot of banging on loud instruments and screaming, this song comes across as very confusing to a listener like me. As I’ve explained, it took me a long time to hear, decipher, translate and understand the words, and I’m still having difficulty. If you’d please excuse my ignorance and answer some of these questions for me, I’d greatly appreciate it. Perhaps if you would also find some artists with a decent amount of talent and begin making music with a more understandable and respectable message, this confusion would happen less frequently. There was a time when music contained melody and soul, but it has deteriorated into what I can only describe as a mess of ignorant, money-hungry celebrities with no talent other than screaming or looking pretty who like to masquerade as musicians, defacing what many others love and respect dearly.
I hope you understand how unfortunate this problem is and that you will do your best to save the world from horrible music, as they are becoming more and more corrupted by the day. Yesterday I saw a 12-year-old girl preforming what has been dubbed the “soulja boy dance,” and I can only hope the poor soul will one day learn and have the chance to appreciate what real music is.
Sincerely,
Concerned listener
+1.
You can probably imagine how popular this song has become, and how many people have actually began to dance to the music. I think there is not one person in my high school who does not know the dance. I am guilty of learning how to dance it.
Although I hate the song and its lyrics, I can’t deny the fact that whoever “sings” this song has the power to make millions of people jump around like fools.
I have to say I’ve not heard the song as it’s not hopped over to this side of the pond (yet… ), so I’m going to look it up on YouTube.
Wow. What an annoying song – and an annoying dance. As I like metal music, and love to headbang, people always used to laugh at me. Hopefully, I will be able to laugh at THEM as they will look far sillier.
My father will listen to Eminem and 50 Cent yet insists that Michael Buble has no talent. (Which is despicable! Vocally the man is great!) I’m a little… diverse with my musical tastes. A love for sugary pop songs has corrupted me forever.
I’ve never heard of this song and I have an uncanny feeling that I do not want to.
I pretty much have nothing more to say – you’ve said it all perfectly.
99% of rap is simply appalling. The majority of it is utterly degrading to woman, the English language, and pretty much everything else that it references to.
I briefly saw the music video to this “popular” song and for a moment, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It was ridiculous. And the ‘music’ was, like you said, horrid – If you can call it music. It gave me a splitting headache.
It’s ho, not hoe. ^_^ Also, is it a bad irony that you made a typo spelling “soldier” when you were trying to point out how to spell it correctly, or do I just have a terrible sense of humor? Probably the latter.
I’m slightly offended by Chanel’s comment here; this is why we listen to indie rap and get into the underground hip-hop scene — 99% of rap is not the garbage you hear on the radio. Popular rap and hip-hop is reaching new lows, but Mark Ronson is still the em-effing bomb.
Lmao, thanks for that, Leila. I thought “hoe” was a variant spelling, though. Oh well. We’re talking about a song that spells “soldier” with a ‘j’ and “Superman” like “Supaman,” after all.
If you think that song was crazy then you need to hear spidaman that ho. There is some good hip-hop out in the world. This kinda reminds me of how in hs on the bus to games we would be singing my milkshake, even though we knew what it meant. Thats why people imo are drawn to artists such as Christina, Mariah, Joss Stone, Jo Jo, Faith Hill, Beyonce, Whitney pre-crack, John Mayer, Gavin, Morrison, Lidell, Jamiroquai, Legend, Nozuka, Justin T, etc b/c it’s soulful and they want something to hear something real. Enough of may rambling but reading this did give me a good chuckle while raising a good point at the same time.
It’s amazing how little people seem to care about the actual content of rap lyrics. One jeep TV commercial used lyrics from a rap which described drive-by shootings.
Soulja Boy is the rapper’s stage name so of course his name has to repeated dozens of times in the lyrics. Sometimes people refer to a penis as a soldier boy or little soldier, so I can only assume this guy is calling himself a penis. If to “crank that soldier boy” is like “cranking your shaft” then the entire rap is about masturbating onto women.
Oh yes! I briefly mentioned this song in my “Music sucks nowadays” post I made a while ago. I had no idea it was called “Crank That Solja Boy”. Oh, excuse me. Dat. It’s very important.
They play the freaking song like once every hour on the radio stations. As soon as I hear even a second of that song I change the station. I’ve haven’t heard long enough to actually know what the guy is saying… but I doubt I’d be able to comprehend even if I did listen to the whole song.
Superman? Wow.
Oh, and I have to agree with Leila… Mark Ronson is nice. And not all rap is trash. I rather like Mos Def and Common. But I like to think of them as “social rap”…
I am an alternative and rock music type of person so rap doesn’t really appeal to me, soundwise. I did enjoy the rap and hip-hop of the 90s (yes, the times of baggy silk pants and synchronised dancing in the alleyways.. though that seemed to be a boyband thing too..) but the rap nowadays doesn’t really appeal to me. I guess I also found rap of the 90s to be more.. socially aware, I guess? Then again, the early 90s was also another height of environmental awareness, racial awareness and the like. I guess based on the previous comments, I am on the recieving end of really horrible rap music because the ones I am hearing have terrible lyrics. If I do come upon rap that I do enjoy, I’ll stand corrected. I may be a rock/alternative music listener at heart, but I can keep my mind open.
Everyone around here listens to that song religiously it seems like. I can’t go anywhere without hearing it. I liked it at first but it has become so played out that it’s annoying the hell out of me. I am more of a rock type of person. I listen to rap occasionally but not very often. Papa Roach, Hinder and things of that type are what I’m into. Not…hmm…well I was going to name a few rap artists but their names seemed to have slipped my mind, lol. See how much I listen to rap, haha.
I think a lot of people just buy into all the popular songs without actually considering the message or the lyrics. Or if they do, they just don’t care
I admit, I find the song catchy. And I can’t really tell what they’re saying or what they mean by it — this is the first time I realize superman is used as a verb; I just thought it was a song about dancing! I guess I should have known better.
Some of the students in my school were teaching the dance to one of the teachers, and there’s even a video of that on youtube.
But hey, I can’t blame them for spelling “soldier” like that. It does make a “j” sound when you pronounce it
I just stopped by to tell you that I finally got the new color theme to unfamed.org up and I REALLYY like the new layout for looking-in.
Anddd ily. Kthnx. =]
And missss talking to you.