Genre Snap Label Collipark
Interscope | Length 3:42 | |
Released May 2, 2007 (2007-05-02) Format 12"
CD
digital download Recorded 2006-07
Soulja Boy's House (Batesville, Mississippi)
Start2Finish (Kansas City, Kansas)
Collipark Studio (College Park, Georgia) | ||
"Crank That (Soulja Boy)" is the debut single by American rapper Soulja Boy Tell'em. 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 riff. It caused what has been called "the biggest dance fad since the [mid-1990s] Macarena", with an instructional YouTube video for the dance surpassing 27 million views by early 2008.
Contents
"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 magazine's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007. The song received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song at the 50th Grammy Awards but lost to Kanye West'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.
Production and release
The song was originally produced in FL Studio before being later re-produced. It was released on May 2, 2007 in the US and on June 27, 2007 globally.
Dance and music video
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) begins in the "ColliPark Residence" with Sincostan Ak Flame and J Fresh imitating the Soulja Boy dance. Mr. Collipark 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 was premiered on BET's 106 & Park on August 9, 2007. The music video features Bow Wow, Chris Brown, Omarion, Unk, Baby D, Jibbs, Rich Boy, Arab, and several dancers doing the signature "Soulja Boy Dance".
A large number of "remixes" of the video, featuring the original audio track and video taken from cartoons such as Bambi II, Dora the Explorer, The Simpsons, South Park, and most notably, SpongeBob SquarePants, also appeared on YouTube at the time of the track's success. There have also been many parodies of the video parodying various people, including Michael Jackson and Barney, as well as a cover by American post-hardcore band I Set My Friends on Fire.
I Set My Friends on Fire version
Crank That is the first single by American post-hardcore band I Set My Friends on Fire. The song is featured on their self-titled debut EP and their debut studio album.
Production
The band released the first single over Myspace under the name of the Cavalry Kids. The song quickly blew up on the Internet and was released on iTunes on September 17, 2007. It was then put on the band's self-titled debut EP and eventually their debut studio album, You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter. The song was written by DeAndre Way and produced by Nabil Moo, Travis Richter and Jeff Abarta.