I love my "Class of 3000" lunch box. And I loved the show, because frankly, Outkast's Andre 3000 is already pretty much a living cartoon, with a voice and beats that sound like a DayGlo rubber ball being tossed into a giant vat of neon Silly Putty.
Which brings me to the Soulja Boy Tell'em cartoon, which debuted Tuesday. Now, if you ask my pal James Montgomery, SJB is engaged in an elaborate, subversive, multilayered art project meant to undermine our traditional bias against seemingly vapid, self-aggrandizing ringtone rap. But if you ask me, Soulja Boy is about as three-dimensional as his cartoon doppelgänger.
"Class of 3000" and, to an equal degree, the late, lamented "Hammerman" cartoon — starring poopy-pantsed fancy dancer MC Hammer — worked because their heroes were already larger-than-life figures whose carefully crafted personas made them stand out from the rest of the gang.
Soulja Boy, on the other hand, is like a teenage hip-hop lottery winner, a dude who basically got really lucky and lives to rub it in our faces with his profane, Segway-flaunting, dollar-raining home videos and nursery-rhyme raps. The first episode of his promised cartoon series is further proof that ya Boy has only one note — and it's getting more annoying than this tune.
Unlike 'Dre's Emmy-nominated "Class," which spun a colorful yarn about a performing-arts school in Atlanta peopled by a colorful collection of misfit musical kids, or "Hammerman," which pulled Hammer into superhero land thanks to some magical dancing shoes (yeah, for real), Soulja Boy is basically telling his own story, with the added twist that he's back in high school (though, as in real life, he's followed around by a member of his posse who videotapes his every move).
Oh, and his principal is grouchy "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" sidekick Alfonso Ribeiro. The first episode is set to the new song "Soulja Boy Tell'em" (does this dude ever get tired of his own name?), in which he lashes out at people dissing his fame. I'm already bored. And judging by the rapidly plunging sales numbers of the rapper's second album, iSouljaBoyTellem, so are his "fans."
I applaud Soulja Boy for trying to break out of the box and stretch his art, though I'll never understand why the clip ends with his character raining down bills into an empty viaduct. But if it were up to me, this show would break left and find Soulja Boy using his superpower — the ability to melt enemies' brains with annoyingly catchy ringtone laser beams — to save the planet from haters.
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