Crank That Soulja Boy

About

“Crank That” is a viral dance craze started by DeAndre Cortez Way, AKA Soulja Boy Tell ’Em; a young rapper who managed to turn his MySpace^[1] and Youtube^[2] fame into a music entertainment career.

Origin

Soulja Boy first started uploading his music to SoundClick in 2005, but it was his single “Crank That” recorded in March of 2007 that started his rise in popularity.

The original instructional video has been taken off Youtube, but a number of reuploads are still available.

Google Insights

Significant search volume for “Crank That” began in April of 2007, the month following the song’s recording. In May, Soulja Boy met with Collipark Records to sign a deal with Interscope, gaining mainstream distribution.

The search trends peak in September of 2007, the month that the song hit the Billboard Top 100.

Video Derivatives

Because of the success of Soulja Boy’s instructional dance video, hundreds of video responses were made with people from all walks doing the dance, while others created mashups of the song with other video sources.