"Crank That" is the debut single by American rapper
Soulja Boy Tell'em
DeAndre Cortez Way (born July 28, 1990), known professionally as Soulja Boy (formerly Soulja Boy Tell 'Em), is an American rapper and record producer. He rose to prominence, after his self published debut single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" peake ...
. It served as the lead single from his debut studio album, ''
souljaboytellem.com'' (2007) and accompanies the Soulja Boy dance. The song is recognized by its looping
steelpan
The steelpan (also known as a pan, steel drum, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steelband or steel orchestra) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists.
Descriptio ...
riff. It caused what has been called "the biggest dance fad since the
Macarena
"Macarena" is a dance song by Spanish pop duo Los del Río, about a woman of the same name. The song uses a type of clave rhythm. Originally appearing on the 1993 album '' A mí me gusta'', a subsequent remix by Miami-based producers The Bays ...
", with an instructional YouTube video for the dance surpassing 27 million views by early 2008.
"Crank That (Soulja Boy)" spent seven weeks at number one on the U.S.
''Billboard'' Hot 100 in the fall of 2007, and was the number 21 on the ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' magazine's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007. The song received a nomination for a
Grammy Award for Best Rap Song
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Song is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality songs in the rap music genre. Honors in several ...
at the
50th Grammy Awards
The 50th Annual Grammy Awards took place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, on February 10, 2008. It honored musical achievement of 2007 in which albums were released between October 1, 2006, through September 30, 2007. The primary ceremonies ...
but lost to
Kanye West
Ye ( ; born Kanye Omari West ; June 8, 1977) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer.
Born in Atlanta and raised in Chicago, West gained recognition as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records in the ea ...
's song "
Good Life". On January 6, 2008, it became the first song ever to sell 3 million digital copies in the US. In 2009 it was named the 23rd most successful song of the 2000s on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 Songs of the Decade.
It had sold 5,080,000 downloads in the US by February 2014.
Outside of the United States, "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" peaked within the top ten of the charts in Australia, Belgium, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Production and release
Soulja Boy—real name DeAndre Way—was raised between
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
and
Batesville, Mississippi
Batesville is a city in Panola County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,463 at the 2010 census.
Batesville is one of two county seats which the legislature established for Panola County, related to a longstanding rivalry between ...
. In his teens, an uncle gifted him a
demo
Demo, usually short for demonstration, may refer to:
Music and film
*Demo (music), a song typically recorded for reference rather than release
* ''Demo'' (Behind Crimson Eyes), a 2004 recording by the band Behind Crimson Eyes
* ''Demo'' (Deafhea ...
copy of
FL Studio
FL Studio (previously known as FruityLoops before 2003) is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by the Belgian company Image-Line.
FL Studio features a graphical user interface with a pattern-based music sequencer. The program is avail ...
. In 2005, he registered an account with the online music service
SoundClick
SoundClick is a music-based social community. Songs can be streamed, downloaded in MP3 format, sold through the store, or licensed to others. SoundClick compiles daily charts for various genres, based on undisclosed factors. The social-network o ...
, and began sharing his songs with others.
He became relentlessly devoted to increasing his name recognition using the Web, expanding his reach to
MySpace and blogs. He misled users of the
peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer n ...
platform
LimeWire
LimeWire was a free software, free peer-to-peer file sharing client for Microsoft Windows, Windows, MacOS, Linux and Solaris OS, Solaris. Created by Mark Gorton in 2000, it was most prominently a tool used for the download and distribution of O ...
by changing his songs'
metadata
Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
* Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
to whatever song was popular at the moment in order to reach more listeners.
Within time, the rapper began to garner a significant number of streams and shares.
His songs stylistically emulate the sound of
Atlanta hip hop
Although the music scene of Atlanta is rich and varied, the city's production of hip-hop music has been especially noteworthy, acclaimed, and commercially successful. In 2009, ''The New York Times'' called Atlanta "hip-hop's center of gravity", ...
in the mid-aughts, particularly the briefly-popular
snap music
Snap music (also known as ringtone rap or snap rap) is a subgenre of hip hop music derived from crunk that originated in southern United States in the 2000s, in Bankhead, West Atlanta, United States.Vibe Jun 2006, "Oh Snap!" It achieved mai ...
fad.
In 2006, the phrase "crank dat"—a lyrical invitation to dance—became a small phenomenon in mainly online hip-hop circles; users uploaded videos of different dance routines set to an increasing number of songs with the title phrase. An early version of the song, titled "Crank Dat Dance Remix", was uploaded June 14, 2006 to SoundClick;
another iteration, titled "Crank Dat Jump Rope", debuted a month later.
"Crank That"—as publicly titled upon major-label release—was self-produced by Way in the unregistered demo copy of FL Studio, utilizing only the software's most basic library of sounds.
The song is musically repetitive and sparse, incorporating snaps, a
steel drum
The steelpan (also known as a pan, steel drum, and sometimes, collectively with other musicians, as a steelband or steel orchestra) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago. Steelpan musicians are called pannists.
Descripti ...
pattern, centered around a meaningless chant: "Yoooouuuulll!"
Way reportedly wrote and recorded the song in ten minutes.
The original recording of the song was made at Way's home,
and subsequently revised and updated for its final release. Way first posted the song, along with an instructional how-to, to his MySpace on February 25, 2007.
The song grew in popularity steadily, attracting the attention of music producer Mr. Collipark, who initially balked at its unexpected recognition.
The song led Soulja Boy to sign with Collipark's imprint on
Interscope Records
Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group through its Interscope Geffen A&M imprint. Founded in late 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field as a $20 million joint venture with Atlantic Records of Warner Mus ...
, which released the final, professionally-recorded song on May 2, 2007 in the U.S. (a global released followed on June 27).
Dance and music video
![Crank That (Soulja Boy) Dance](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Crank_That_%28Soulja_Boy%29_Dance.gif)
Inspired by recent dance crazes that had popularized some rappers from Atlanta, Soulja Boy (DeAndre Way) and his friends invented the dance moves that gave rise to "Crank That": As summarized by ''The Wall Street Journal'', "dancers bounce back on their heels, ripple their hands, crank their wrists like motorcyclists, then lunge into a Superman pose".
The music video (directed by
Dale Resteghini
Dale Anthony Resteghini (born August 28, 1968), better known as Rage, is a music video and film director and record producer. Rage has helmed hundreds of videos for well-known acts from the global superstars to the emerging acts to the niche br ...
) begins in the "ColliPark Residence" with Sincostan Ak Flame and J Fresh imitating the Soulja Boy dance.
Mr. Collipark
Michael Antoine Crooms (born October 5, 1972), better known by his stage name Mr. Collipark (and also known as DJ Smurf), is an American hip hop producer and the president of his own Atlanta-based record label, Collipark Music, which was starte ...
takes a keen interest in the children's movements, leading him to contact Soulja Boy in an attempt to sign him up to "Collipark Records". His instinct is confirmed when he notices a number of people performing the dance, en route to meeting with Soulja Boy.
This video premiered on
BET
Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los A ...
's ''
106 & Park
''106 & Park'' is an American hip hop and R&B music video show, set up in a countdown format, that was broadcast on weekdays at 6:00 pm ET/5:00 pm CT on BET; it aired on a one-day delay on BET International. It was the network's highest- rated ...
'' on August 9, 2007. It features
Bow Wow,
Omarion
Omari Ishmael Grandberry (born November 12, 1984), better known by his stage name Omarion, is an American R&B singer, songwriter, actor and dancer. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the boy band B2K. The group achieved success in the e ...
,
Unk
Anthony Leonard Platt (born November 28, 1981) commonly known by his stage name Unk, is an American DJ, hype man, and rapper. Some of his work has featured on the 2K Sports ''NBA 2K9'' game. He is best known for the mid 2000s snap hit " Walk ...
,
Baby D,
Jibbs
Jovan Campbell (born November 13, 1990), better known by his stage name Jibbs, is an American rapper. He had one top ten single on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100, which was his debut single "Chain Hang Low". Jibbs's only other song ...
,
Rich Boy
Marece Benjamin Richards (born September 2, 1983), better known by his stage name Rich Boy, is an American rapper from Mobile, Alabama. He is best known for the hit single "Throw Some D's" (featuring Polow da Don) released in August 2006. It was ...
and others doing the signature "Soulja Boy Dance".
Legacy
"Crank That" has been widely regarded as among the earliest digital hit singles of its kind.
Music journalist Tom Breihan devoted a chapter of his 2022 book ''The Number Ones'' to examining the legacy of "Crank That", with particular regards to Soulja Boy's self-driven marketing and nascent online popularity. Breihan considers
Drake
Drake may refer to:
Animals
* A male duck
People and fictional characters
* Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family name
* Drake (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* ...
,
Lil Nas X
Montero Lamar Hill (born April 9, 1999), known by his stage name Lil Nas X ( ), is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He rose to prominence with the release of his country rap single " Old Town Road", which first achieved viral popula ...
, and
Nicki Minaj
Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty (; born December 8, 1982), known professionally as Nicki Minaj ( ), is a Trinidadian-born rapper based in the United States. She is known for her musical versatility, animated flow in her rapping, alter egos and accent ...
his potential progeny, writing:
Soulja Boy himself has argued the point, remarking in an interview with ''
Complex
Complex commonly refers to:
* Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe
** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...
'': "I motherfuckin’ showed you how to get famous from your bedroom on the internet!
..They’ll talk about it in history books later."
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
All-time charts
Certifications
References
{{authority control
2007 songs
2007 debut singles
Soulja Boy songs
Songs written by Soulja Boy
Songs about dancing
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Interscope Records singles
Novelty and fad dances
Snap songs
Internet memes introduced in 2007
Music videos directed by Dale Resteghini
Hip hop dance