A great hot dog is defined, in part, by its condiments. What those condiments are is, of course, totally up to you. That being said, there’s one condiment that stands above the rest: New York Hot Dog Onion Sauce. If you’re planning on grilling up some dogs (or burgers) this weekend, you should have a warm bowl of this regional classic at the ready.
Hot Dog Onion Sauce is widely available throughout New York’s hot dog scene — from Papaya’s to Nathan’s to Katz’s to all the pushcarts with Sabrett umbrellas. It’s basically homemade ketchup filled with cooked onions. Simple? Sure. Delicious? Abso-freaking-lutely.
I’ve been kind of obsessed with mastering this sauce lately, and I think I’m very close. I’ve taken my cue from eating a ton of dogs on the street of New York and from Sabrett’s own recipe. The ingredient list from Sabrett’s for their “Pushcart Style Onions in Sauce” is pretty straightforward, “Onions, Water, Tomato Paste, Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Sugar, Olive Oil, Fumaric Acid, Spices.”
With that as my guiding light and a little cheffed up riffing, I’ve turned this into an easy-to-make-at-home hot dog sauce that’ll wow at your Memorial Day backyard BBQ.
1 tbsp. apple cider vinegar [I use balsamic here, to give a little Italian flair. — editor]
1 tsp. of garlic powder
1/2 tsp. of allspice
1/2 tsp. of cinnamon
1 tsp. of sweet paprika
White pepper
Salt
Olive oil
I’ve seen a lot of recipes online that simply call for ketchup as the base sauce that you jazz up with your own spices and so forth. This recipe is basically making your own ketchup; I think it’s much better after trying both methods. There’s a richer tomato base at play here when you use a thick tomato paste.
As for the spices, this is just my best guess from memory and it’s very close to Sabrett’s version. I’d recommend adjusting the spices to your own taste and playing around a little with it.
I also jettisoned the corn starch from the original recipe. Instead, I just simmer it all down for about ten minutes to thicken. It works perfectly well every time.
Zach Johnston
What You’ll Need:
Cutting board
Kitchen knife
Medium pot with a lid
Wooden spoon
Measuring spoons and cups
Jar with a lid
Zach Johnston
Method:
Skin the onions. Chop the onion in half from pole to pole. Then thinly slice the onion, again from pole to pole.
Place the pot on medium heat with a thin layer of olive oil in the bottom.
Add the onions and hit with a pinch of salt. Lower the heat and slowly cook the onions until they start to caramelize (at least 20 minutes) while stirring occasionally so they don’t burn.
Once the onions have reduced and caramelization starts and smell very sweet, add the tomato paste to the bottom of the pan and use the wooden spoon to heat to tomato paste without burning, and then stir into the onions.
Add the spices to the bottom of the pan and let them bloom for about ten or 15 seconds and then stir into the onions.
Add the water, vinegar, and brown sugar and stir until completely emulsified.
Keep on low heat and simmer slowly with an ajar lid, stirring occasionally, for about ten minutes.
Once the “sauce” is reduced by one-quarter, remove it from heat. It should have the same consistency as ketchup.
Serve immediately or place in a jar and refrigerate.
Always warm up to serve.
Zach Johnston
Bottom Line:
Zach Johnston
I’ve been making a lot of this over the last couple of months. It works wonders on a hot dog, obviously. It also rules on a cheeseburger. I put some in a quesadilla and it worked really well. This stuff is versatile!
As for the hot dog, I went old-school. Steamed bun, dirty water dog, spicy brown mustard, warm sauerkraut, and onion sauce. It was a delight. The soft bun, spicy mustard, and kraut all provided a great counterpoint to the sweet/spicy/umami onion sauce. The dog had a legit “snap” to it. I really couldn’t ask for more.
Plus, now I have plenty of sauce for burgers this weekend. That’s a big win!
Tucker Carlson has joined the growing list of conservatives who are blasting John Cena for his apology to China after accidentally sparking an international incident by referring to Taiwan as a country, which is a major faux pas when it comes to the People’s Republic. China does not recognize Taiwan’s independence, so in an attempt to fix the situation (and likely protect F9‘s box office haul), Cena spoke in Mandarian for an apology video on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. However, Cena did not specify what he was apologizing for, and the video created a new backlash in the U.S., where the actor/wrestler has been heavily criticized.
On Wednesday, Carlson called the apology “disgusting” and outright “groveling” as the Fox News host parroted the pervasive right-wing talking point of equating Cena’s apology with a hostage video. He also accused Cena of being part of a leftist cabal that caters to the communist nation. Via The Wrap:
Tucker said the video “was effectively a hostage tape” and added that, “He can never mention Taiwan again.”
Tucker also suggested that Cena is part of a larger left-leaning swath of society that Tucker believes cowtows to China because the country helps them get rich. “If you want to make money in China, you have to follow their rules,” he said.
Of course, Carlson’s comments aren’t exactly original. Since the apology video, Cena has been roundly criticized by conservatives like Senators Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton, Megyn Kelly, and former CIA director Mike Pompeo. However, Cena has also received criticism from Democrats like Keith Olbermann who dragged the wrestler for apologizing to a “dictatorship.”
BTS is undeniably one of the biggest musical groups right now. Not only did they recently secure a worldwide McDonald’s partnership, but they also tend to break massive streaming records every time they drop a new song. Their recently released English language track “Butter” is no different. The song was streamed so many times upon it’s debut that it has set five new world records.
Guinness World Records confirmed BTS’ new feats. According to the company, “Butter” broke the record for the most viewers on a YouTube music video premiere with 3.9 million concurrent viewers, a title which they previously held for their track “Dynamite.” Later, “Butter” set a new record for the most YouTube video views in 24 hours with 108,200,000 views, also giving them the record for most viewed YouTube music video in 24 hours by a K-pop group.
YouTube isn’t the only place where “Butter” dominated. The track was streamed 11,042,335 times globally in just one day, giving them the record for the most-streamed track on Spotify in the first 24 hours. Their Spotify success officially makes them the most-streamed musical group on the platform with 16.3 billion plays as of April 27, beating out Coldplay who previously held the record with 16.1 billion streams.
This isn’t the first time Guinness confirmed a BTS world record. In fact, the group is getting their own dedicated page in the next Guinness World Records book. Their inclusion was thanks to their previous YouTube premiere record for “Dynamite.” But seeing as they’ve just bested their own world record, they may land a spot in next year’s book as well.
Brace yourselves, folks, because this is almost too friggin’ adorable to handle.
A 911 call can be a scary thing, and an emergency call from a dad having chest pains and trouble breathing is no exception. But thankfully, an exchange between that dad’s 5-year-old daughter and 911 dispatcher Jason Bonham turned out to be more humor than horror. If you missed hearing the recording that has repeatedly gone viral since 2010, you have to hear it now. It’s perfectly timeless.
When an Indiana dad used his cell phone to called 911 and couldn’t talk, his daughter Savannah picked up the phone. Remaining remarkably calm, cool, and collected, the articulate 5-year-old expertly answered Bonham’s questions—and added her own hilarious commentary as well.
At Bonham’s request, she made sure the front door was unlocked so the emergency crew could get in. She told him about their dog, Lou Lou, who was “small” and “barks a lot,” but was “friendly.” She consoled her dad—who may have been in the middle of a heart attack—with “Don’t worry, Dad,” and “Stay calm, Dad.” She also kept the dispatcher up to speed on what was happening, repeatedly saying, “So far, so good.”
But the pièce de résistance was when Savannah told Bonham that she and her dad were in their “jammies” so she’d have to change. “I don’t know what I’m gonna wear, but…he really needs oxygen, real fast.”
Five. Years. Old. This kid is seriously something else. Watch:
Bonham said he was surprised by how Savannah handled the call. “Most people when you talk to them, they’re hysterical,” he told Eyewitness News. “Every time I’ve listened to it it’s amazing. She’s just a little person.”
Thankfully, despite the scare, everything turned out fine for Savannah’s dad. When the story went viral, her mom posted on Facebook, “We are so grateful & blessed that Savannah’s 911 call is still being circulated. It makes the whole entire night worth while. The more awareness it brings & the more adults that teach children what to do the better!”
Well done teaching that kiddo, mom and dad. She was truly amazing.
Gucci Mane admits his contentious Verzuz battle with Jeezy was “tense but real” in a new profile of the trap godfather for Billboard. Looking back on the night and the provocative goading the two rappers engaged in, Gucci expresses his appreciation for the opportunity. “It was a good step forward,” he says. “For us to do that and for nothing bad to happen, that was great.”
Gucci also spends some of the profile addressing his outsized impact on the rap game compared to the amount of credit he’s received for influencing some of the biggest names in rap — including, Future, Migos, Nicki Minaj, and Young Thug. “Is the true story of what really happened with all these artists and how I helped them going to come to light?” he wonders. “There are some interesting stories, and it was so long ago that they get lost. Nobody ever really told the true story. [Artists] want to tell you what made them look good… I don’t get the credit.”
Elsewhere, though, he acknowledges the possibility that he won’t receive those accolades in his time. “If you wait on [the world] to give some credit, either they’re going to do it when you’re dead or when somebody has fallen off and they’re not relevant anymore,” he reflects. “They never give it to the person when they’re still in the moment.”
Read Billboard‘s full cover story on Gucci Mane here.
Gucci Mane is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Just when you think Zack Snyder has run out of surprising revelations, the Army of the Dead director has confirmed that, yes, he was in talks to make a Star Wars movie sometime around the time of Man of Steel and Disney’s multi-billion dollar purchase of Lucasfilm. There were rumors at the time that were only further bolstered down the road when Snyder kept slipping Star Wars imagery into social media posts for Batman V Superman, but neither Snyder or Lucasfilm have ever acknowledged the project. His team even went so far to deny reports back in 2013 that he was developing an “Akira Kurosawa-inspired” film that would be entirely separate from the Skywalker Saga.
However, Snyder has been an open book these past few months while promoting both Army of the Dead and his Snyder Cut of Justice League, and during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, he confirmed that he really was developing the project for Lucasfilm that would’ve taken Star Wars back to its roots by leaning heavily into the Kurosawa samurai films that originally inspired George Lucas. Obviously, Snyder’s Star Wars film didn’t happen, but he says it might see the light of day as its own standalone sci-fi movie. Via IndieWire:
Detaching the Kurosawa-inspired movie from “Star Wars” didn’t prove difficult, as Snyder said there was no overlap in terms of characters between what he was developing at Lucasfilm and the other movies in the franchise. The director added about his isolated “Star Wars” movie, “It was me saying, ‘Give me the keys and let me take it for a spin.’”
“The 11-year-old me still wants to make that, and now, I know how to,” Snyder said about the Kurosawa-inspired movie. “So, maybe we’ll see that someday.”
Snyder also revealed that he’s still tinkering with his project, and he’s fine with it no longer being set in a galaxy far, far away: “I’m just going to let Star Wars be Star Wars.”
2020 was sadly without a festival season, but it’s looking like that won’t be the case this year. Many major festivals are planning to return in 2021, and that’s also the case for more intimate events. For example, beloved indie label Woodsist is bringing back their Woodsist festival this year, on September 25 and 26. The tidy lineup features just over a dozen artists, but organizers have done a swell job at packing the two-day event with talent.
Saturday the 25th will be headlined by Yo La Tengo and will also feature Kevin Morby, Woods, Bridget St. John, 75 Dollar Bill, Cassandra Jenkins, John Andrews + The Yawns, and Aquarium Drunkard DJs. As for Sunday the 26th, Parquet Courts will lead that day, along with Kurt Vile, Natural Information Society, Laraaji, Steve Gunn, Anna St. Louis, Sessa, and Tubbys DJs.
The press release for The Reservoir, David Duchovny’s new Audible Original (which you can download now) namechecks the Alfred Hitchcock classic 1954 film Rear Window when teasing the actor turned author’s new work (with this plus his four previous books, he’s hardly a tourist in the literary world). It’s about “a middle-aged man living alone who grows increasingly obsessed with a woman whose apartment window he faces.” Duchovny, himself, mentions Thomas Mann’s 1912 novella Death In Venice as another inspiration for this story when we spoke via Zoom recently. But this short form fiction audio project is also heavily rooted in the now, or rather, the heart of a pandemic where a dying man slips into a world of conspiracy while, quite possibly, losing his mind.
As Duchovny explains it, the only possible setting for all of this was New York, where he himself spent much of this lost year of quarantine staring out the window of his apartment, a view that is woven into The Reservoir (and which is breathtaking… Zoom interviews are rad). But while COVID and conspiracy loom large in this fictional world, the latter wasn’t always a part of the plan. And then the world turned how it did over these last few months and, voila, inspiration.
We spoke at length with Duchovny about that, his evolving relationship with the spoken word side of writing, and the real-world conspiracies and “shitty story” that has taken hold of a surprising number of people. We also discuss how Californication, his and Tom Kapinos’ seven-seasons-long misanthropic sexcapade-laden love story, would hold up in the culture of 2021. And as is appropriate for the season with the NBA Playoffs underway, we got into a near fight about Knicks basketball.
Really enjoyed this story. I am not at all someone who likes audio projects — I blame my attention span — but this gripped me.
Well, thank you. It’s funny. I guess I have a tangled history with audiobooks because I haven’t really listened to them a lot in my life. I mean, maybe back in the aughts, when I was driving a lot. But with the four books that I’ve done as an audiobook, I almost had a chip on my shoulder when I was reading it, because I was like, “This is to be read. This is not to be listened to. I wrote this to be read.” And I think not until the last one, with Truly Like Lightning, did I really show up and try to figure out: “What’s the difference between reading on a page and listening to it?”
And with this one, I continued that in that I thought, “Well, this isn’t going to exist as a printed piece for a few years anyway,” because Amazon buys up the rights for a few years. So I thought, “Well, it’s going to exist as this thing, as this story that you hear in your ear. And what does that mean? What does that mean for the writing? What does that mean for the performing?” So I’m starting to open myself up a little bit more to the idea that it’s different and legitimate.
And this is something you’d go into again, trying to create specifically for this medium?
Yeah. In fact, I just was thinking this morning about almost a kid story that I had an idea for. And I was thinking maybe I’ll conceive of this from the start as something to be spoken. I think there’s only so much your brain can handle when it’s listening. It’s like listening to poetry. It’s tough to listen to a good poem, it’s tough to get it. And so I think that there has to be, if you’re thinking about doing it as an audible, you kind of have to keep your audience in mind.
How much of you is in this character, your feelings, even your experiences from the pandemic? Obviously, there’s a lot of things that aren’t.
Well, it’s all inspired by the view of my apartment, really. And I do take time-lapse photos of the sunrise. The picture on the Audible is a picture I took. That’s my actual view that I’ve been looking at, and like Ridley [the main character], I’ve been kind of obsessed with it for years and years. Not obsessed with it in the way he is, but just kind of taken with it and captivated by it. Aside from that, there’s really not a lot. I mean, I’m sure there’s some interior dialogue that I felt like expressing, maybe about pandemic stuff, life during the pandemic.
At first, when I started writing it, I didn’t actually know that I was going to go to the key to all conspiracies. That all came later. I knew I wanted to write something about distances in the pandemic, the weird congested distance that you can only get in New York City during this pandemic. I imagine there are other cities that are more congested, but not in my experience. I haven’t lived in Tokyo or Mexico City. It’s just, for me, there’s this strange psychic phenomenon, aside from all the real world’s heartache and disaster, that is, you’ve got to keep your distance in a city that kind of prides itself on stacking people on top of one another. “I’m not giving you any distance at all.” So I just started kind of toying with that. And then obviously coming out of the election, and the January 6th thing, and QAnon, it was all kind of on my mind. And in a way, I wanted to embrace the universal need for explanation. And I thought that the urgency of a man who’s dying or is sick gave me an entree into that kind of embrace of… kind of the big answer.
You have some connection to conspiracy theories with the X-Files and on to this. Personally, what’s your take on how conspiracies have sort of evolved in the culture, their importance in the culture, their prominence, and even in government now? I mean, I can imagine, but I’m curious.
It might be the profound question of our time, so I don’t want to be glib. I don’t know. I don’t have a short answer. I can only tell you, first of all, it has nothing to do with my experience on the X-Files, and I didn’t learn anything about it. I didn’t get into it.
Well no, the cultural phenomenon of it [I mean].
No, no, I know, I know. I’m just saying that didn’t lead me here. I think it really gets down to our fundamental human nature of wanting… It’s exactly what the story is about. I say it in the story, not in so many words because that would suck. But we need the story to make sense. We are the storytelling animal. We’re the animal that tells itself stories in order to make sense of the world. And I think we’ve been doing it since we’ve been painting on caves and since we’ve been able to speak. So there’s something gloriously natural in conspiracy. It’s the most natural thing to us, because the world doesn’t make sense. My personal belief, is that there is no story to be had. There’s no writer of this existence. That’s the essential push and pull and paradox within us: we have this need for story. And yet in my mind, if we are honest enough and enlightened enough, we know that it’s all bullshit. And so then the question becomes, tell the story that does the most good? Tell the story that not only makes you happiest, but makes other people happier, or is fairest, or has the best morality as far as you see it. I don’t know. I’m not talking about propaganda.
I guess the story itself, The Reservoir, is kind of about the need to have the answer and how human that is. And so I have an understanding of people who believe in QAnon and shit like that, because I get the need. I’m sorry that they think it’s true, but I get it. And I feel like the people who are using the story for political ends are the real villains, not so much the people who I see as consumers of a shitty story… of a badly told, unimaginative, silly, shitty sci-fi type story. So I’m like, “Let’s tell a better story that makes us better as people.”
When you say that it’s all bullshit, are you referring to the notion that we can’t really know some of these things?
I guess I’m referring to the fact that I don’t think there is an answer, but also what I’m saying is in terms of this particular bullshit, how silly and stupid the QAnon conspiracy is, how detached from reality, how harmful, and yet, surprisingly it trades in ancient memes of antisemitism, pedophilia, drinking blood — it’s nothing new. It’s straight out of handbooks that are resolved as the protocols of the Elders of Zion. So that’s a story we should stop telling ourselves. That’s what I’m saying.
Californication is something I just went back and revisited in preparation for this. A couple of the final episodes last night. The show is still so good, so sharp. You probably get asked this a lot, but I’m curious how you think Hank Moody would exist in 2021, just the character, but also the show?
It’s a tough one. It’s very tough because there’s a lot on the surface that would be attacked where we find ourselves culturally, and maybe for good reason. But for me, that was never the heart of the show, and it was almost like you were biting at the wrong bait if you were getting upset or keying in on that stuff, and I still would say that’s the case. I just don’t think anybody would chance it right now, and I don’t know that anybody would make it. But that’s not to say that I don’t believe in it or I’m not as proud of it as I ever was. It is interesting to see how time passes and we start to look at things differently, but I do believe that… Actually, not only its heart, but its politics and it’s sexual politics were actually in the right place if you can look beyond kind of the smoke and mirrors of the looseness of it, or of the… sometimes the childishness of it. I don’t know, but again, I’m the wrong guy to ask.
Getty Image
To take it back to The Reservoir and to New York at the end here, but the one conspiracy that was mentioned in the story that feels more grounded is the idea that the Knicks might be a hoax. It’s not ancient, but there’s definitely a decades-long swirl where you can believe that this is all going to fall apart. Are you observant of that?
[Laughs] Well, I am a Knicks fan and I’ve kind of tuned out the last two or three years. But I have been kind of warily peeking around the corner at this team. I mean, I think they’re playing like a team, and they don’t really have a superstar unless Randall continues in this incarnation that he’s found. But they’re a good team. I don’t see them going that far, but they’re playing way better than I thought they would.
The city’s a little different, I think, when they’re playing well.
The city is totally different when the Knicks are playing well, it’s really weird. It’s different from if the Yankees or the Mets are winning or the Jets or the Giants. When the Knicks are winning… I think maybe because the Madison Square Garden is in the middle of the city, and so the entire middle of the city can get congested and excited during a run, which is kind of cool. I mean, I remember Linsanity, that’s the last time the city freaked out over the Knicks.
(Editor’s note: The Knicks won a playoff game for the first time in a long time last night in a packed, raucous Madison Square Garden.)
I was very much in the city during the ’90s run with the Starks and Ewing team and everything like that. And while I hated it because I’m a Bulls fan, you could feel the electricity.
He dunked over Horace Grant! Jordan was trailing, be honest. He dunked on Horace Grant.
I don’t know. All I remember is I think he changed hands and dunked left.
I don’t know, man.
You want to talk about bullshit moves? I’m sure you know, I’m sure you’ve looked at the tapes. I’m sure you’re right [about Starks], I’m sure he didn’t really dunk over Jordan. Otherwise, you wouldn’t say that. But the famous, “best move of all time” that they talk about with Jordan, where he switches hands at the rim [against the Lakers in 1991]… It’s a bullshit move! He’s at the rim with the ball. He can just dunk it. And then he does this thing where he flips it. It’s unmotivated. It’s a bullshit move. It’s not the Dr. J move where he actually had to go under the basket to score.
Okay, that’s fair. That is fair.
He’s not getting away from anybody. Retire that along with the shove-off and the shot over Byron Russell.
So the anti-Jordan thing is still alive and well with you?
Oh God, yeah. It was just re-inspired by The Last Dance. I got all upset all over again.
I had a doctor once that I went to and he had the Starks poster on the back of his door. And honestly, part of the reason I stopped going to him and switched up is because I couldn’t stand staring at that thing. And this is not long ago, this was like five years ago. “Just take it down, man. It’s been a long time.”
[Laughs] It’s like, “Why did he die?” “Well, he stopped seeing the doctor.” “Why did he stop seeing the doctor?” “Oh, it was the Starks poster.”
You can listen to the first few minutes of ‘The Reservoir’ below and download the Audible Original here.
I don’t feel old but I’m old enough to remember being too old for Soulja Boy when he first came out. Back in 2007 when “Crank That” was terrorizing sound systems at wedding receptions and sending ’90s rappers into conniption fits, I remember sitting back and watching the chaos with a sense of amusement. After all, the kids loved the silly dance that came with it the way those grumpy old heads had loved doing the Kid n’ Play Kickstep — also known as “Funky Charleston” — and ringtone rap seemed no more destructive to the art form than the Fresh Prince winning the first-ever rap Grammy.
Considering that we saw the Kickstep come surging back riding a wave of ’90s nostalgia (even though it never really went away) and the ground shaking popularity of the elaborately choreographed dances on TikTok making hits of songs like Doja Cat’s “Say So” and Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage,” it was probably only a matter of time before Soulja Boy became a fixture of that app’s audience’s repertoire. And so it has, thanks to the man himself, who went back to the creative well that first launched him into the spotlight for the irresistibly catchy new single “Make It Clap.”
The track, which he cooked up off-the-dome during a freestyle session on Twitch, is all the things “Crank That” was; simple, repetitive, instantly recognizable, and of-the-moment, tapping directly into the pleasure centers of its young fans’ brains with a trunk-rattling, skeletal drum track and loopy, hypnotic whistling tune. But the element that’s making it a feature of post after post on TikTok is the Soulja-concocted dance that goes with it, a Macarena-esque upper-body Hokey Pokey whose moves are just enough on the nose that they echo the lyrics without the lyrics being instructional — in other words, the sort of dance damn near guaranteed to go insanely viral.
That’s exactly what it’s done, shooting straight to the top of Billboard‘s little-known but portentous Top Triller chart — both US and Global. Songs hitting that impressive milestone generally go on to invade other, more mainstream charts as casual users begin to stream them outside of the confines of TikTok and its endless-scrolling array of dance-along videos. Thinking Soulja just had to have some interesting thoughts on going viral pretty much the same way in two different decades — especially now that he’s an established vet, rather than the table-flipping young upstart — I got him on the phone for an interview about the song, dance, and their ridiculous success. I wasn’t disappointed.
Could you walk me through the process of recording “Make it Clap?” What were you doing that day? What happened in the studio?
I was streaming live on Twitch. I was on Twitch streaming, and I got a server on there called Soulja World. I got a studio in Grand Theft Auto, but I had started the studio because, with the pandemic and stuff like that, I couldn’t really be around all my folks. We just be in Grand Theft Auto freestyling. Mostly I just be on the mic, just spitting, going through beats. When I pulled the beat up, I was like, “Man, this is it, too hard, I want to turn this into a real song”.
When you first came out with “Crank That,” you did the dance yourself, you created the challenge, and it just sort of took off. Is that what happened with “Make it Clap?”
I uploaded it, made a dance to it, and then everybody just kept doing it. I did the TikTok video, then I posted the TikTok video to Instagram and I was like, “y’all go check out the ‘Make It Clap’ challenge”. Then everybody just started doing it. I feel like it was just the people coming from my Instagram to my TikTok seeing the dance. Then after that, the TikTok community got on to it. They kept it going. I just kept remixing it. We kept remixing it until it just caught on.
Obviously, it’s a little bit of a different style of dance than “Crank That.” How would you describe the differences?
I just feel like back then, we had less dances, and now we have so many dances where you can incorporate all them dances into a challenge. We came from “Crank That” and the Superman, to the Nae Nae and hittin’ them folks and all that. Now, there’s so many different dances out, it makes it easier for the kids and for the grown folks from the club just to dance. You could pick any one move and hit it. I feel like it’s hard to learn when you when you’re on the outside looking in. But I feel like once you get involved, it ain’t as hard as it looks.
It seems like there’d be no TikTok or no Instagram challenges, or any of that other stuff without you. I was watching The Boondocks the other night, specifically the Sargeant Gutta episode, and I had no idea I would be interviewing you two days later. You went through a whole era where fans clowned you, and you’re still here on the next version of it. What do you think about the longevity that you’ve had?
I keep going, and just keep going, and just keep going. Just keep going. It definitely hit me though when I went number one again. I’m like, “Man, I did it again. I really did it again.”
Do you any advice for younger artists?
Blueprint though, just attack the internet. There’s so many successful artists out there now. I don’t really want to judge the next artist, because you never know what they’re going through. Sometimes it could be life obstacles. Sometimes it could be they caught through this society. It could be just people. You never know what it is, but I just feel you got to keep going. You just got to attack that internet.
There’s so much success out there for people. You can do anything in this day and age. You got to put your mind to it and attack. Just put yourself out there. Just work hard, and just keep going. It’s up to you. If you don’t want to stop, just keep going, like me. I know some people are like, “Why he ain’t stopped?” I want to keep going.
I always ask artists this question, because I know a lot of you guys have to do so many interviews all the time about the same stuff, and people ask you the same questions over and over again. Do you have any sort of things that you’d like to talk about, or any interest that you’re into that you never get a chance to talk about because nobody ever asks you?
I would say crypto, but they talked to me about that a little bit, but definitely like cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, and stuff like that. They talked to me about that a little bit, but if I really want to speak on some, that don’t nobody really talk about: Anime. I like Dragon Ball Z. I need to do something with Dragon Ball Z. Dragon Ball Z need to holla at yo boy. Death Note, too. I’m a fan of anime, cartoons, video games, and tech, all that is it.
I feel like that should be the next move, period. That’s why I came out with a video game concert. I’m a fan of South Park, Family Guy, Super Mario, Sega, Sonic the Hedgehog. Art. got a toy coming out with YouTube, Soulja Boy action figures. I’m inspired just by stuff that just creativity. Creativity in the music. That’s what I do. When I’m in the studio, I’m creative. I’m making the beats, that’s being creative. I like to create, I like to create stuff.
Let’s say the next anime Netflix gives out, they come to Soulja Boy, where they say, “We want to make a Soulja Boy anime.” What’s it going to be about?
That would be the best anime and highest-selling Netflix show of all time. They’ll turn it into a movie, video game, merchandise, everything. That’s what I been praying for since I was little. If I get a Soulja Boy anime, it’s over with. There’s a lot of stuff I deserve. They try to suppress me and put me in a box and say, “He from the hood.” No, I’m Soulja Boy! I made “Crank That!” That’s crazy to me, but it’s all good. I just went number one on the Billboard again. That’s why I’m not stopping until I get everything I want in life. I’m not stopping.
Cobra Kai keeps pulling off the seemingly unachievable, all after resurrecting The Karate Kid franchise in a way that it so richly deserved. It’s an infuriatingly good revival, and Season 4 has somehow already wrapped shooting after the show hot-dropped Season 3 a few days early in late 2020. New cast members will be onboard while a few actors have been promoted to regular status, and Netflix is diving into tease-and-reveal-and-tease-more mode with the above video, which confirms what some suspected about John Kreese’s curious phone call: he was calling up his old Vietnam War buddy, who was previously seen (in a flashback) telling Kreese, “I owe you, man. You saved my ass. Anything you need, I’m there for you. Your whole life. You hear me? Your whole life.”
This was, in effect, a set up for the Season 4 because (as Netflix has now confirmed) the old friend is actually Terry Silver, last portrayed by Thomas Ian Griffith in The Karate Kid III. He was, along with Kreese, one of the O.G. founders of the Cobra Kai dojo. Kreese was looking for a secret weapon because he sure needs one after Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence have joined their dojos, and their charges will fight Kreese’s recruits at the All Valley High conference, three decades after the 1984 showdown between Daniel and Johnny that ended the first film with that fateful crane kick. And as the above teaser promises, Thomas Ian Griffith will truly return to the franchise.
Via a Netflix-issued statement from Cobra Kai writers and co-executive producers Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, “Now the real pain begins.” They added, “Since the beginning of the series, we’ve been carefully orchestrating the right moment to unleash Cobra Kai dojo co-founder Terry Silver back into the universe. That moment is now. We can’t wait for the whole world to experience Thomas Ian Griffith’s majestic return to the franchise.”
Yep, expect some real pain for sure. Silver showed himself to be quite adept at poisoning the minds of those who crossed his path, and that includes Daniel LaRusso, although hopefully, Daniel has learned his lesson about shying away from the dark side after what went down with Miguel and Robby a few years ago. Whatever the case, it’s sure to be an enormous showdown, and since the action’s going back to All Valley in Season 4, that would also be an ideal time for the show to answer this significant question that the show has yet to address. Make it happen, Netflix.
Cobra Kai‘s Season 4 release date remains under wraps, for the moment.
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