Over the last six weeks, rapper Soulja Boy has been a much talked about figure within the gaming community. The rapper has been selling knock-off games consoles like the SouljaGame Handheld, and gamers everywhere have been mocking his ill-conceived venture. Over the weekend, though, the Soulja Boy mockery went mainstream.
Comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live dedicated a section of its “Weekend Update” segment to the “Crank That” rapper. The sketch becomes the latest SNL gaming skit after it made fun of bad Fortnite squad members last year.
In the Soulja Boy skit, comedian Chris Redd performed his best impression of the rapper. At one point he explains that he had been “hustling the video game market,” before pulling out a Sony PlayStation Vita to demonstrate. After Weekend Update co-host Michael Che asked if the device is a Nintendo knock-off, Redd as Soulja Boy, yelled “Nintendo?” in reference to the rapper’s recent, meme-worthy interview on radio talk show The Breakfast Club.
According to Redd’s Soulja Boy impression, this powerful handheld console features such games as Fork Knife (not to be confused with Epic Games juggernaut Fortnite). Other titles include Reg Dread Recession and Manjeno and Linguini, also known as the Super Manjeno Bros. While these made up games are pretty funny, some will point out that had Soulja Boy’s console featured these bogus titles instead of actual Nintendo properties, it still wouldn’t have been enough for the rapper to avoid Nintendo’s legal threats.
The Saturday Night Live skit pokes fun at Soulja Boy in all kinds of ways, from his exaggerated mannerisms to his claims that rappers like Drake copied his flow. This segment isn’t friendly to the rapper at all. Even so, Soulja Boy doesn’t seem to mind the additional publicity, having tweeted a link to the Saturday Night Live video from his official Twitter account. The rapper may use this exposure to help sell even more knock-off games consoles, adding to the reported sales of five million units so far.
On the other hand, Soulja Boy may hope that the publicity will help to ease his money woes. While it’s unclear exactly what the rapper’s bank balance looks like, a recent competition led to some speculation that he is broke. Soulja Boy asked his fans to donate money to him via the Cash app, saying that the highest donator would receive a free games console for their efforts. However, it’s also unclear how well that donation drive went, and if the SNL skit will have helped to encourage people to send a buck or two in Soulja Boy’s direction.
Source: Saturday Night Live – YouTube
