Just In It For The Music: Top seven reasons not to dance to “Soulja Boy”

I sat at my computer for a solid half-hour, trying to think of a witty, yet still caustic… I sat at my computer for a solid half-hour, trying to think of a witty, yet still caustic way to say this, but I just can’t come up with anything. So here goes: Soulja Boy is terrible. Awful. Maybe the worst thing to happen in hip-hop since Notorious B.I.G. died. And that was a decade ago. Now before you call me an indie-rock snob, let’s explore why it is that I might be so perturbed by this bad little boy.

With that, I present to you The Top Seven Reasons Why Soulja Boy is Worse Than Global Warming and Twice as Annoying. Let us begin.

7. Name Confusion and Shameless Self-Promotion – Soulja Boy is also known as Soulja Boy Tell’em. His album is called Souljaboytellem.com, which is also the address of his website. Now, this extended name would imply that Mr. Boy, whose real name is DeAndre Way, is being instructed to tell us something, as in, “Hey Soulja Boy, tell ’em about your hot new album called Souljaboytellem.com.” But, no, that’s just his name.

Thankfully, in case any of us were confused, Mr. Boy repeats some incarnation of his name no less than 46 times in the course of his hit song, “Crank That (Soulja Boy).” He also includes his name in the song’s title for those of us who are deaf and can only read track listings. What a gentleman.

6. Special Dance Equals Career Death – If Soulja Boy wishes his career to be long and illustrious, it’s a shame, because by creating a dance to go with his hit single, he has effectively slaughtered this possibility. Remember the guys who wrote “Macarena?” How about “The Electric Slide?” Exactly. By basing the first hit song – the foundation of a commercial artist’s career – on an instructional dance, any chance that people will view said artist as legitimate drops to zero.

The only way for such an artist to stay successful is to write more hit singles that come with dances. Unfortunately for Soulja Boy, the quality of his current dance hints that any subsequent dances will be about as interesting as sitting on a couch or lying down. His “Crank That” dance makes drunk people look drunker and awkward people more awkward, causing many to fall over and hurt themselves on a sharp object nearby. Who’s ready for a lawsuit?