About

Sweet Brown is a pseudonym used by Kimberly Wilkins, an Oklahoma City resident who was interviewed by local news station KFOR News Channel 4 after evacuating from her apartment building that was set on fire. Her emphatic testimony of the chaotic scene quickly led to massive exposure on YouTube, similar to those of Antoine Dodson and Eccentric Witness Lady.

Origin

On the morning of April 7th, 2012, a three-alarm fire broke out at an Oklahoma City apartment complex in Oklahoma, leaving one person hospitalized for smoke inhalation and five units damaged.^[2] The local station KFOR News Channel 4^[1] was among the first to arrive on the scene and interview one of the displaced residents Sweet Brown. During the interview, she stated that she had woken up to get a “cold pop” when she thought someone was grilling before she realized there was a fire. Brown then proceeded to run out of the apartment without shoes. In describing the heavy presence of smoke from the fire, she uttered “ain’t nobody got time for that!” which became one of the more memorable lines.

The clip was first uploaded to YouTube^[4] by KFOR employee Ted Malave on the same day, however, another version uploaded by YouTuber lucasmarr^[5] on April 9th became the most shared version to date, gaining over 1 million views and over 109,000 Facebook shares^[6] within 48 hours.

Spread

The video was reposted on Tosh.0^[8] on April 10th and eBaum's World^[7] the following day. News sites including Hypervocal^[9], Long Island Press^[10], and WCSH Portland^[11], as well as culture sites Hip Hop Wired^[13], Gawker^[14] and Buzzfeed^[15] reported on the video between April 10th and 11th. On August 23rd, Boston radio station WAAF released a ringtone featuring the catchphrase from the interview.

Follow-up Interview

On April 12th, NBC conducted a follow-up interview^[3] with both Sweet Brown and her son, who were apparently shocked by the amount of YouTube views her original news report had received. This interview appeared on MSNBC^[12] the same day.

On April 13th, lucusmarr, who uploaded the original new clip 4 days prior, found Sweet Brown via her son. He brought her 4 cases Royal Crown Cola, which Sweet Brown responded "I really got time for this!"

Copyright Lawsuit

On March 9th, 2013, Oklahoman daily newspaper NewsOK reported that Kimberly Wilkins has filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit and a compensation of $15 million against Apple Inc., Seattle-based radio program The Bob Rivers Show and a number of other parties for unauthorized use of her likeness for commercial purposes. According to the article, Wilkins filed her first complaint against "I Got Bronchitis," a remix based on audio samples from her KFOR news interview clip (shown below), which became available for purchase via Apple's iTunes store in April 2012. While the song has been since taken down from iTunes, the suit has since moved to the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma and remains pending.

Notable Remixes

External References