Elmo Freestyle

About

Elmo Freestyle, also known as Elmo Rap, refers to a viral video in a young boy performs a rap song about Sesame Street character Elmo. The 2011 video gained popularity in 2019 following a viral tweet, later also spreading to Instagram.

Origin

On December 5th, 2011, YouTube user 912djsupastar (Duwap Kaine) uploaded a video titled "Elmo freestyle" in which he performed a rap song about Sesame Street character Elmo.^[1]

Elmo came with that AK-47,
Nigga, you don't hate on me, I'll bring out that 11.
Bring out the AK, 40-lil-7,
I bust it up on you, nigga, you look like presents.

Spread

The video did not see any significan spread unti April 6th, 2019, gaining only 5,900 views in eight years.^[2] On April 6th, 2019, Twitter user @stepdad___ tweeted video, sped up by 50 percent, with the tweet receiving over 50 retweets and 110 likes in three weeks.^[3] On the same day, Twitter user @wondyful reposted the video (shown below), with the tweet receiving over 16,700 retweets and 49,400 likes in the same period.^[4]

In the replies to the tweet, several users recognized the person performing the song as Soundcloud rapper Duwap Kaine, then a fourth-grade student.^[8][9] Duwap Kaine later confirmed that the person in the video is him.^[10]

In the following weeks, multiple YouTube users reported that the video was showing in their YouTube recommendations.^[5][6] Between April 6th and April 24th, 2019, the video gained over 1.3 million views.

On Instagram, the footage gained popularity in video edits. For example, on April 7th, 2019, Instagram user swanton.mp4 posted one of the earliest edits of the video which gained over 15,400 views and 3,300 likes in two weeks (YouTube reupload shown below).^[7]

In the following weeks, more edits and reuploads of the video were posted to Instagram.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References