About

"Turn Red" is a 2023 song by British reggae dancehall rapper M Dot R. In 2023, a video of the rapper freestyling the song at a YouTube show went viral on social media, first inspiring memes on TikTok and later on X / Twitter.

Origin

On June 10th, 2023, reggae freestyle show Reggae Selecta UK uploaded^[1] a video of a freestyle by British-born raggae dancehall rapper M Dot R. The video (shown below) received over 1.8 million views in six months (shown below).

Big bumbaclaat splif a buss inna mi head
Hot sexy gyal ah say she wan fi gimme head
When mi fuck pussy, pussy turn red
Gymnastic, now di pussy dead

On June 11th, 2023, Reggae Selecta UK uploaded a 50-second clip of the freestyle to TikTok,^[2] where it garnered over 5 million views and 443,000 likes in six months.

On November 11th, 2023, M Dot R uploaded an official video for the song which received over 2.3 million views on YouTube^[7] in two months (shown below).

Spread

The clip achieved initial popularity as source material for video captions on TikTok. For example, on September 21st, 2023, TikTok^[3] user @lowqualitysh1tzz posted a caption meme that received over 789,000 views and 37,000 likes in three months (shown below, left). On September 22nd, TikTok^[4] user @david_savje posted a meme which accrued over 5.2 million views and 538,000 likes in three months (shown below, right).

On November 7th, 2023, X^[5] user @benshoned0 used the clip to quote a post reading, "Trust women or be Jamaican." The post (shown below) garnered over 7,100 reposts and 21,000 likes in two months.

https://t.co/lhIxV6ihDe pic.twitter.com/JNKzQP9J5S

— BENSON✞ (@bensoned0) November 7, 2023

On December 19th, 2023, X^[6] user @chillextremist posted a still image from the clip paired with a caption which parodied the lyrics of the song and the delivery style of M Dot R. The post (shown below) received over 330 reposts and 5,800 likes in three days.

In the following days, the format in which users paired the image of M Dot R with various lyrics achieved notable popularity on X / Twitter.

'GTA VI' Radio Appearance Speculation

On December 13th, 2023, M Dot R posted his reaction to what appeared to be a letter from Rockstar Games inquiring about potential usage of the song in Grand Theft Auto VI (video shown below). The legitimacy of the letter was not confirmed. The video received over 16.8 million views and 1.9 million likes on TikTok^[8] in ten days.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References