If He Can’t Break Bread He Fake

Submission 19,285

Part of a series on Rap / Hip-Hop. [View Related Entries]

About

If He Can’t Break Bread He Fake, continued I Had One Mo Buck On My Plate, are lyrics from the song "Play For Keeps" by deceased Chicago drill rapper L'A Capone and RondoNumbaNine about needing a friend to "break bread" (as in lend money for food or share food), and if he wouldn't, he was then a fake friend. The song was recorded in 2013 and posted to YouTube that year. The lyrics trended in content honoring L'A Capone after his death. However, in late 2022, a clip of L'A Capone freestyling the lyrics in a Zacktv1 YouTube interview became a trending TikTok sound and song used by TikTokers who played the track when their friends were eating as a way to humorously guilt trip them into giving them a bite.

Origin

On July 29th, 2013, the YouTube^[1] channel of DADAcreative uploaded the music video for L'A Capone and RondoNumbaNine's song "Play For Keeps," gaining roughly 55.1 million views in nine years. At the 1:58-minute mark, L'A Capone rapped, "And if he can't break bread he fake / I had one more buck on my plate / It was me and bro, we was in the store / And both of us got 50 cent cake" (shown below, left). On August 5th, 2013, the YouTube^[2] channel Zacktv1 uploaded a 14-minute long interview with L'A Capone and RondoNumbaNine. At the 3:09-minute mark, L'A Capone reiterated his lyrics from "Play For Keeps" which later became the video used in the TikTok sound. Over the course of nine years, the Youtube video received roughly 2.6 million views (shown below, right).

If he can't break bread he fake. I had one more buck on my plate. It was me and bro, we was in the store and both of us got 50 cent cake.

Spread

L'A Capone was killed in September 2017,^[3] months after the virality of his song "Play For Keeps." Thereafter, the use of his "break bread" lyrics became a way to honor his memory in online content. For instance, on February 3rd, 2020, Chicago drill rapper King Von posted to Instagram^[4] with a caption that read the lyrics, gaining roughly 202,500 likes in two years. King Von was also killed shortly after his post. On October 5th, 2020, the Instagram^[5] account rapcovermedia posted a video with L'A Capone's lyrics as the inspiration, gaining roughly 572,200 views and 50,000 likes in two years (shown below).

TikTok Sound

On June 23rd, 2022, TikToker^[6] zxcnvvb posted a video that used footage from L'A Capone's interview with YouTuber Zacktv1 in which he's rapping the "If he can’t break bread he fake" lyrics. TikToker zxcnvvb's video added subtitles and the ambient song "METADATA" by Tokyo Ghost playing in the background. Over the course of five months, the video received roughly 1.8 million plays and 301,000 likes (shown below, left). Due to the virality of their video, on January 28th, 2022, TikToker^[7] zxcnvvb reposted the video to make it its own sound,^[8] gaining roughly 1.1 million plays and 151,300 likes over the same time period (shown below, right).

After the video was made a sound,^[8] multiple TikTokers used it going into late 2022. However, viral, memetic usage didn't surface until October 2022. For instance, on October 20th, 2022, TikToker^[9] bigdawgkeyy_ posted a skit using the sound in which he slapped his imagined friend when he tried singing the song to guilt trip a dollar, gaining roughly 326,100 likes in 24 days (shown below, left). On October 30th, 2022, TikToker^[10] rfootman used the sound for a video of him getting school lunch food from his friends, gaining roughly 418,500 likes in 15 days (shown below, right).

Over the course of five months, the TikTok^[8] sound amassed over 10,400 videos.