We Not Making It Out The Hood

About

We Not Making It Out The Hood is a catchphrase used to mock bad hip-hop songs or beats, implying the song will never be a hit or make money. The first notable use of the phrase online was in a tweet from April 2020, spreading across social media over the course of the year and later becoming popularized on TikTok as a sound effect.

Origin

It is unknown who originally coined the phrase "we not making it out the hood" or when it started, however, it began growing in popularity online in 2020.

Two of the earliest examples of the phrase in relation to hip-hop music were uploaded to YouTube^[1][2] by Kayla Ann on January 20th, 2020, in a series of rap songs titled, "We not making it out the hood" parts one and two, joking about the amateur quality of the songs (shown below, left and right). It's unclear, however, if the title was edited after the phrase became more popular. Notably, the songs were made using the music production app BandLab, which allows users to share their songs online via its platform, where a number of "not making it out the hood" style beats can be found.

On April 11th, Twitter^[3] user @Lolade4PF posted, "My boy just played me his unreleased, we’re not making it out the hood bro" garnering over 60,000 likes, 12,000 retweets and 2,000 quote tweets in a year (shown below). This is one of the earliest well-known uses of the phrase in relation to bad music.

Spread

Prior to June 2020, a video taken from Snapchat in which a Black man with an English accent raps badly over a text label reading "We are not making it out the hood" began spreading around the web. On June 26th, 2020, YouTuber^[4] nine o two one o uploaded the video, garnering over 14,000 views in 10 months. On August 9th, Twitter^[5] user @VideoReacts then shared a version of the video showing the user's name, garnering over 106,000 views and 200 likes in eight months (shown below).

TikTok Success

On October 23rd, 2020, TikToker^[6] @cireyt uploaded a video with on-screen text reading, "We not making it out the hood pt.1," with the caption, "Told me pull up to cook some heat and they made this," showing off a bad beat his friends allegedly made, which garnered over 2.1 million views in six months (shown below). On October 26th, TikToker^[7] @almighttykem used the original sound for a similar video, garnering over 1.9 million views in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

In November 2020, the now-deleted TikToker @neoreoo0 posted a video of a bad rap song made on BandLab allegedly by his cousin. On November 4th, YouTuber^[8] Lyric uploaded the video to YouTube, titled "We ain't makin it out the hood 😭," garnering over 30,000 views in five months (shown below).

On November 6th, TikToker^[10] @henofamous posted a purposely bad BandLab beat with the ironic on-screen text, "I'm fasho making it out wit dis," garnering over 1 million views in five months (shown below, left). The original sound was used over 30,000 times in that span of time, mostly in skits about supporting someone in something they're bad at (example shown below, right).

Continued Spread Outside TikTok

On January 17th, 2021, Redditor u/lilshawnyy420 posted a video of someone badly rapping to /r/playboicarti^[11] titled, "we not making it out the hood 😞," garnering over 1,100 upvotes in three months (shown below).

On January 23rd, Instagram^[9] user @bigwinnn posted a video of a bad rap song with the caption, "Verified
JAZ FIRST SONG 😂😖WE NOT MAKING IT OUT THE HOOD BUT WE DEFINITELY MAKING IT TO THE CORNER STORE 😳😳😳," garnering over 718,000 views and 131,000 likes in three months (shown below).

Related Memes

We Making It Out of X With This One

We Making It Out of X With This One is a phrasal meme format most commonly used to comment on music videos on YouTube and and which is based on the earlier We Not Making It Out the Hood. The phrasal template gained popularity in February 2023, with users humorously altering it to reference the lyrics of the song.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References