What Sound Does The Letter Make / "Phonics Song"

About

"Phonics Song" is a children's hip-hop song and animated music video by YouTuber Gracie's Corner meant to help children learn the sounds that the letters of the alphabet make. The song was uploaded to YouTube and TikTok in February 2022 and went viral on the former over the following months in dance videos and skit videos where adults admit that the song is catchy and "goes hard."

Origin

On February 20th, 2022, the TikTok^[1] account for children's YouTube channel Gracie's Corner uploaded a preview of an animated music video for a song titled "Phonics Song" (shown below). The song takes listeners through each letter of the alphabet and teaches them the sounds they make over a hip-hop beat, featuring three animated children dancing in Egypt. The upload gained over 4.9 million views in five months. On February 21st, the children's YouTube^[2] channel Gracie's Corner uploaded the full animated music video (shown below). It gained over 19 million views in five months.

This is the phonics song. Got us reading all day long.
This is the phonics song. Phonics song.
What sound does that letter make? (Tell me)
What sound does that letter make?
Break it down, sound it out
Yeah, you heard. Put the sounds together, now we’re reading words.

Spread

On May 11th, 2022, TikToker^[3] @dontaymccauley posted a video set to the original sound for "Phonics Song" where he vibes to the song while sitting in the car, captioned, "My daughter request Gracie's Corner OTW to school but I didn't know it was a BOP," gaining over 3.7 million views in two months (shown below, left). On May 15th, TikToker^[4] @jhordan_nificent posted a video with a similar caption, reading, "kids songs shouldn't go this hard," gaining over 11 million views in two months (shown below, right).

On July 2nd, YouTuber se0en_9 uploaded an instrumental version of the song, gaining over 45,000 views in a month (shown below).

On July 5th, Korean TikTokers^[5] @faiv_crew posted a video dancing to the song, gaining over 400,000 views in three weeks (shown below).

The song became increasingly popularized among Korean TikTokers over the following weeks in dance and general videos. On the same day, TikTokers^[6] @cciinnn posted a dance video to the song, gaining over 15 million views in three weeks (shown below, left). On July 6th, Korean TikToker^[7] @hoaa.hanassii posted a video dancing to the song, gaining over 4.3 million views in three weeks (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References