Webstar

Until Webstar and Young B arrived with their immediate hit “Chicken Noodle Soup,” the South and the Bay Area appeared to control the supply of regional urban club anthems. At age 16 the female rapper Young B, born Bianca Dupree, converted her favorite sick-day meal of chicken soup and ginger ale into the track’s opening refrain, “Chicken noodle soup with a soda on the side.” Producer and promoter Webstar, then 19, had cleared dance floors at his Harlem events by sweeping his arms and shouting “clear it out,” thereby supplying the second major refrain, “Let it rain/Clear it out.” Partygoers soon matched that line with arm motions that became the song’s unofficial dance. By June 2006 the single was igniting Harlem clubs, after which homemade clips of uptown N.Y.C. youths performing the moves began surfacing on various video-sharing sites. Viewers from mid-America and farther afield quickly joined the phenomenon, posting their own versions and thereby rendering Webstar’s name oddly prescient. Around the moment West Coast businessmen in three-piece suits began circulating their renditions, Universal acquired the independently released 12-inch. In August the label delivered “Chicken Noodle Soup” to DJs nationwide.