Since Tiny Shiny first posted "Crank Dat" I have been following Soulja Boy in the news, and it must be said that we still lack a clear understanding of his role within the Crank Squad or the goals of the Crank Squad more broadly. We know that Soulja Boy releases his training videos over the Internet. And we now know that he recently infiltrated the entire University of Texas Longhorns football squad, recruiting them to his crank-dat regime and lending Soulja Boy a militia of unparalleled strength. The ability to negotiate from the I-formation with QB under center? Consider Soulja Boy a regional authority to be reckoned with.
Soulja Boy's modular message has been adopted and transformed by other figures in the global hip-hop community who are interested in cranking dat for a variety of purposes. Using freely available p2p technology, I was able to locate instructions for cranking dat vis-a-vis a number of significant world leaders across the globe. In addition to Soulja Boy's original Crank Dat Superman, I was able to acquire:
it's no surprise: Texans love line dancing.
Crank Dat Sculptrixxx is where it's at.
The people at The Onion have asked me to tell you to leave this sort of thing to the professionals.
Posted by: wud at September 25, 2007 11:59 AMChrist. Atlantic commenters are the worst people on the planet. Fuck off, wud.
Back to the issue at hand: Soulja Boy seems confused about his aims, too. After all, the track is largely composed of unanswerable, self-interrogatory questions (e.g.
"why me crank it?"; "why me roll?"; "why me super-soak that ho?").
So long as Soulja Boy remains mired in this existential crisis I don't think we have too much to fear from him.
Posted by: Tom at September 25, 2007 12:13 PMFucker, I've published in The Onion!
Posted by: Kriston at September 25, 2007 12:25 PMTom, is it possible these questions are rhetorical in nature? They are intended to make you think, "Why indeed. Why not?"
I wish you hadn't done this, Kriston. Inevitably, I will end up crank datting, like, Zizek, on the train or something. My career will be over.
Posted by: A White Bear at September 25, 2007 8:03 PMExcuse me, "cranking dat."
Posted by: A White Bear at September 25, 2007 8:07 PMOk, I'm no expert. But I do believe that Souja Boy is imploring his audience to "WATCH me crank it, WATCH me roll," etc. (Not typing the next bit as I'm pretty sure it is very dirty.) Anyway, K, thanks for the shout-out. I'm glad I was able to bring this joy into your life.
Posted by: Lauren at September 25, 2007 10:19 PMWhite Bear, feel no shame when you Crank Dat Zizek on the train. Zizek is a hip guy. I'm sure he'd appreciate the sentiment. In fact, I've heard tell that his next book is going to be entitled "Crank Dat Sublime Object of Ideology."
Posted by: ajl at September 26, 2007 3:07 PM