So, all the little kiddies at the school where I finished the year love them some Souja Boy. I did some poetry activities with the 7th graders and I asked them to find some song lyrics so we could look at them for poetic merit. Several of them brought Soulja Boy lyrics, and I was vaguely horrified, mostly because they hardly have any words. Here’s one that one of the kids brought in:
My wrist too silly
The girls throw me dish cuz my rims big billin
My ride too silly
I ride too silly
We for fantastic cuz I got a deally
Cuz now I’m worth a millian
I was like, um, what?
So last Friday night, I helped chaperone an end-of-the-year dance for the 8th graders. The last song the DJ played was Crank Dat by Soulja Boy:
Watch me crank it
Watch me roll
Watch me crank that soulja boy
Then super man that hoe
Now watch me you
(crank that soulja boy)
Now watch me you
(crank that soulja boy)
Now watch me you
(crank that soulja boy)
Now watch me you
(crank that soulja boy)
(some of the lyrics replace “hoe”, which I thought was spelled “ho”, with “oh”. Which of those is accurate? I dunno. I guess ho makes marginally more sense.)
That’s pretty much the whole song. But what I learned Friday night was that it’s a dance. And it actually looked pretty cool to see the entire 8th grade class doing it, and so I thought, “well, maybe I can understand why 8th graders like this talentless twerp.”
Here’s a video from YouTube:
I was reading some comments on one of the videos posted earlier, and they were pretty entertaining. It was based on one of those comments that I went to urbandictionary.dom to look up “Superman dat ho.” And then I was both disgusted and horrified.
I guess my point here, if I have one at all, is that I’m OLD, and I don’t understand this newfangled music. I’m going to go tell some kids to get off my lawn now…
Well, after reading this, of course I had to go to urbandictionary.com, too. Disgusted and horrified pretty much sums up my reaction. Wow.
I work in a high school and do not consider myself conservative in the least but every time I hear that song and see the kids go crazy I get a little sick feeling in my stomach. then I wonder why that song is allowed to play at a school dance. Am I too old too?
“Be excellent to each other.” I liked that.
It’s hard to reach these kids where they be at, but unless we do, they gonna stay thar. I am often shocked by the lyrics in the popular lexicon, and if I hear a child say “liberry” I have learned to appreciate that they know what it is, not scare them away with my elitist immediate correction, or vent to the world in blogland. Get them INSIDE, show them why it cool (“we real cool, we skip school”), work up a trust, use our frustrations as launching points and teaching/modeling moments. I know it’s frustrating, and I don’t walk in your shoes. But I walk in mine, and they lead me to trying to make kids feel welcome in a world that constantly shows them otherwise.
just two jennipennies.