Alphabet Aerobics

About

Alphabet Aerobics is a song by hip-hop group Blackalicious. The song features rapper Gift of Gab rapping bars in which nearly every word begins with the same letter of the english alphabet. He devotes two bars to each letter and moves through them consecutively over a beat that slowly increases in tempo. Due to the technical mastery needed to perform the song, rapping it in various ways has become a popular challenge on YouTube.

Origin

"Alphabet Aerobics" was released on the A2G EP by Blackalicious in 1999.^[1] Unlike most Blackalicious songs, which are produced by Chief Xcel, "Alphabet Aerobics" was produced by Cut Chemist.

Spread

The song experienced a massive surge in interest following an October 28th, 2014 episode of The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon in which Daniel Radcliffe appeared and Fallon challenged him to rap the song. As of May 1st, 2017, the clip has over 73 million views on Fallon's YouTube channel.

The clip caused a spike in YouTube videos in which other people rapped the song with various caveats, such as rapping at a faster speed and performing the rap while doing impressions. A month after Radcliffe's performance, YouTuber Brizzy Voices uploaded a video in which she performed the song, doing an impression of a cartoon character with each new letter, gaining over 10 million views (shown below).

Over the following two years, dozens more videos devoted to completing the song with various caveats were uploaded to YouTube. Some notable examples include a newscaster warming up for a live shot with the performance (shown below, left) and a sports variation published by Bleacher Report (below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References