It's So Cold in the D

About

It's So Cold in the D is an original hip hop song by the Detroit-based aspiring emcee T-Baby, whose real name is LaTonya Myles. After the music video was uploaded to YouTube in January 2008, the song gained attention for its bravely off-tempo performance and homemade aesthetics.

Origin

Aspiring rapper T-Baby wrote the song "It's So Cold in the D" to commemorate the memory of her friend Mason Graham, who was shot and killed at a restaurant in 2006. The video was recorded in October 2007 in Detroit by videographer Leo WIlliams on a budget of $300.^[2] It was uploaded to YouTube by pwltf on January 3rd, 2008 and has accrued more than 5.8 million views and 19,000 dislikes as of November 2012.

Spread

The YouTube clip gained little attention and stayed under the radar throughout the first half of the year until August 2008 when it began circulating on social networking site MySpace. It was also picked up by various hip hop music blogs that month including World Star HIp Hop^[3], Dig Your Own Grave^[4], Videogum^[5]XXL Magazine’s blog^[8] and Uproxx.^[6] That month, the song was also made available for purchase on iTunes.^[7]

T-Baby's Response

In October 2008, T-Baby began doing interviews about the overwhelming response to the video, including an in-studio performance (shown below, left) on the Detroit radio show Mojo in the Morning, who were well known for their prank phone call segments. Later that month, T-Baby explained to Detroit blog Metromix^[9] how the song was intended to address the city’s high volume of violent crimes and that the cold she is referring to is how heartless people are to each other. In late 2008, T-Baby held her first live performance in Detroit (shown below, right) but no longer seems to be active. Her MySpace^[10] was last updated in October 2011.

Beavis and Butthead Parody

In the November 10th, 2011 episode^[11] of the MTV animated series Beavis and Butthead, the titular characters are shown watching and negatively commenting on "It's So Cold in the D." Following the episode’s airing, T-Baby said she did not mind the humor at her song’s expense, as she had received $4000 in royalties from MTV.^[12] However, she later reported receiving racist threats via text messages as well as verbally due to the heightened attention from the show.^[13]

Notable Derivatives

The original music video has inspired many different types of response videos: reaction videos (top row), covers (middle row) and mashups and remixes (bottom row). As of November 2012, there are more than 297,000 search results for "so cold in the d" on YouTube.^[1]

Search Interest

External References