Sunday, November 9, 2008

How Soulja Boy Tell 'Em is Revolutionizing Music (For Better or Worse)

Wow, this ended up being way odder and random than I expected. Enjoy. Sorry for the randomness, it's just been on my mind lately.


I love music. It's an integral piece of my life: rap, rock, techno, it's all shaped who I am today. I've especially fallen in love with ip-hop and rap music in recent years: the hypnotizing hooks and rhythmic beats mesmerize me, the meaningful lyrics about political turmoil and the struggles of life in the a young person growing up on the streets of the inner city.



So when I first heard the #1 Billboard Top 100 hit "Crank Dat" by some kid named Soulja Boy Tell 'Em.



And I almost cried.

What had happened to my hip hop?! Where were the insightful lyrics, now replaced with cries of "Yah Trick, Yah!"? What happened to the rhythmic beats and melodies that once made my head bob up and down with the flow, now that simply make it shake side to side with a depressing no.

But recently, I've come to realize the genius of Soulja Boy Tell 'Em (read:his manager). He is the first artist I've seen who is really playing and making music with purely profits in mind. He makes catchy beats and annoying, yet memorable hooks that make perfect YouTube videos and ringtones. His lyrics hold no intellectual value, but that seems to work in today's fast paced world. Few care about the lyrics of their favorite songs, so why should the artist?

None of this should be taken as a compliment for Soulja Boy Tell 'Em. I truly dislike his music. But there is no denying that he is now a musical force to be reckoned with, and he is paving the way for even more vapid, self obsessed, crap music for years to come.

You Tell 'Em Soulja Boy.  You Tell 'Em.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

the chances of a RICH man going to heaven is the same as a camel going thru the eye of a needle. If music used to represent the deeply spiritual and thoughtful, Soulja Boy not only represents the decline of the thoughtful and spiritually engaged, but an evil nature of the mainstream music industry. Money should be a key, a vehicle to joy and personal sustainability. When money takes on its own individual value, exists as an object in and of its own, we've got some issues. Yeaaaa, get money.