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A Rapper Salutes the Slave Trade
Our music critic calls Soulja Boy on the carpet.
One of the biggest songs in the country last year was an inane, sex-chant-infused Southern rap called "Crank That (Soulja Boy)," by young Soulja Boy Tell Em, from tiny Batesville, Mississippi, population 7,113. Soulja Boy Tell Em turned 18 this summer and is looking forward to voting for the first time. His monster hit song included repeated assertions of a cartoonishly absurd sex act: supermanning, or as he elaborated repeatedly in the song, "Superman that ho," which means to come on a woman's back and then put a sheet over her so it sticks to her back and she looks like she’s wearing a cape. Ridiculous stuff. He also chants repeatedly, "Supersoak that ho,” the meaning of which needs no explanation, given the neighborhood we're already in.
These are ludicrous suggestions that play into the Cro-Magnon conception of men using sex and sperm to attack and slay women. It's such a mean-spirited vision of sex that every time I heard the record I thought, I bet that before this came out, he was a virgin.
I asked him, “What historical figure do you most hate?” He said, "Shout out to the slave masters! Without them we'd still be in Africa.”
Last week in Atlanta, I got to interview Soulja Boy Tell Em. I found out just how young he really is. He was one of about ten rappers I interviewed in one day for my BET show, The Black Carpet. I decided it'd be fun to give all the rappers part of the Proust questionnaire. I thought it'd be a way to get beyond image and into who they really are. Most of the guys gave good, thoughtful, intelligent, sensitive answers. I asked Juelz Santana, “How would you like to die?” He said, "Loved."
Then came Soulja Boy Tell Em. I asked him, “What historical figure do you most hate?” He was stumped. I said, "Others have said Hitler, bin Laden, the slave masters..." He said, "Oh wait! Hold up! Shout out to the slave masters! Without them we'd still be in Africa."
My jaw, at this point, was on the ground."We wouldn't be here," he continued, having no idea how far in it he'd stepped, "to get this ice and tattoos."
Wow. Never mind that diamonds come from Africa. Never mind that there were many generations of pain in between leaving Africa and getting diamonds. Never mind that the long-term cataclysmic effects of subtracting about tens of millions of young, strong people from Africa over the course of a couple of centuries is a large part of the reason why Africa now appears so distasteful to you. Never mind all that, Soulja Boy. You put country first.
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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Touré is a columnist for The Daily Beast. He's also an NBC contributor and the author of Never Drank the Kool-Aid, Soul City, and The Portable Promised Land. He is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, was CNN's first pop culture correspondent, and was the host of MTV2's Spoke N Heard. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker and the New York Times.
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LessthanZer0
I think, too, that there are many thoughtful rappers on the scene today. I hope Soulja Boy is open to schooling by his peers.
RYNRGSDL
Wow... I'm speechless.
TheAlchemist
The inane music from Soulja Boy is enough to make any rational human being shudder. It's a shame that his ignorance and age betrayed him.
zazzer
Like you said, he's a kid. He just turned 18, and now he's living in the fantasy world of celebrity. No hate, but I saw him on MTV Jams with a couple older dudes in a serious rap discussion and his points were weak and goofy...I think we just need to wait for him to mature.
And I feel like after hyphy and snap, rappers are shifting from completely goofy back to semi-seious. I don't think 'YAHHH!' will stand the test of time.
satyricaldude
I don't think youth can forgive such an idiotic statement.
opt1muspr1me
This is what happens when you drop school for the short lived hip hop career.
scough
Wow. This bad attitude towards women is properly adversely affecting his ability to get "ho's" to be c-m buckets for him.
JoeDD3
I have worked twice as a contract employee for USAID in Africa. I discuss African issues with a good friend, who is Ghanian by birth, but was raised in Liberia. He feels that the colonial period in Africa helped moderate the murderous tribalism that is all too evident even today (e.g., Rwanda, Congo, Ivory, Coast). Many Africas would jump at the chance to emigrate to America. Touche, Toure.
bdoucet
I am very much ashamed for him. He is unaware of his own ignorance.
frozenfood
This only reinforces my view that he is one of the many "artists" that are a cancer to the entire hip-hop/rap genres.
Natacha
I want to be mad, but more than anything I'm really sad that there is such a gaping hole in his education and sense of who he is in the larger context of the world. Of course, we can want to hold him to a higher standard because he is an entertainer and on a platform to influence the way [white] people see Black/African Americans, but the reality is there a lot of people--young and old--who are victims of internalized oppression. I think the it was Biko who said, "The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
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smdunne
Soulja Boy's shout out to slave masters reminds me of the "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry and his girlfriend are making out during "Schindlers List."
You can be sickened by that, or you can laugh and see that liberty means having the freedom to express that kind of irreverence.
I'm uncomfortable when black people call each other "n***er" but I accept that it comes from the same irreverent place, and I understand that it doesn't give me the right to use the word.
I would bet that Toure has called another black person "n***er" at least once. He has probably also boasted about his imagined sexual prowess too, guys do that stuff.
Souljah Boy sounds just like any clueless American teenage boy -- lighten up and let him be.
Beastiful
I've known context of this song since it was released. What is completely baffling is the degree to which its completely offensive nature is overlooked due to its pop culture appeal.
Because to 'crank that' is seen as a must for those who go clubbing.
As for the boy, he should have a better manager and PR team to keeps his completely absurdist comments in check.
Thank you.
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