About

Vocoded To "Gangsta's Paradise" refers to a video edit trend in which a vocoder effect is used over various viral videos and clips to make them match the tune of Coolio's 1995 song "Gangsta's Paradise." Vocoder video edits first started appearing on YouTube in 2018, with the "Gangsta's Paradise" versions appearing in 2019.

Origin

On February 10th, 2018, YouTuber^[1] We Are Soup uploaded an edit of the viral Get Out of My Car video in which the audio is vocoded to match the tune of "Bloody Stream" from the anime series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (shown below). This is the earliest known meme edit on YouTube to use the vocoder effect, garnering over 235,000 views in three years.

In the following years, vocoding video clips to various songs became a common practice in video edits. On May 26, 2019, YouTuber^[2] Cheese Wizard posted a video in which a clip from the SpongeBob Squarepants episode "Pizza Delivery" is vocoded to Coolio's 1995 song "Gangsta's Paradise," garnering over 2.6 million views in just under two years (shown below). This is the first vocoder meme to use the song.

Spread

Users began uploading a number of videos similar to Cheese Wizard's over the next year, in which various clips are vocoded to "Gangsta's Paradise." For example, on October 20th, 2019, YouTuber^[3] Lightnite Productions uploaded a version of "Asdfmovie 12" vocoded to the song, garnering over 26,000 views in just over a year (shown below).

On July 9th, 2020, YouTuber^[4] Sovereignty uploaded a video of the fight with Sans from Undertale vocoded to the song, garnering over 232,000 views in nine months (shown below, left). On September 5th, YouTuber^[5] JFK Headwound uploaded a video vocoding the song to itself, garnering over 1.1 million views in seven months (shown below, right).

Videos following the trend saw a significant increase in popularity leading into early 2021, with several uploads from the first quarter of the year going viral. For example, on January 20th, YouTuber^[6] Memnicus posted a version of the 64 Bits clip vocoded to the song, garnering over 3 million views in three months (shown below, left). On January 28th, YouTuber^[7] Pringa uploaded a clip of Peter Griffin from Family Guy falling down the stairs with the edit, garnering over 2 million views in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

On February 19th, 2021, YouTuber^[8] Lessons In Meme Culture uploaded a video on the trend, garnering over 295,000 views in under two months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References