What is Baby Keem's "Range Brothers" Featuring Kendrick Lamar?

A 2021 hip-hop song from Baby Keem's album The Melodic Blue, memed online because Kendrick Lamar chants the Irish greeting "top of the mornin'" seven times near the four-minute mark.

What does the "top of the mornin'" line in "Range Brothers" mean?

It is a stock Irish greeting Kendrick Lamar repeats seven times during his verse, with no clear tie to the rest of the song, which is why listeners flagged it as strange and ran with the joke.

How do you use the "Range Brothers" meme?

Creators usually isolate the "top of the mornin'" audio and sync video to the seven repetitions, as @honestlykalvin did with a dancing-men edit and Anthony Fantano did with a hat-tipping dance.

Is the "Range Brothers" meme still popular?

The viral burst centered on September 2021 around the album's release, driven by @0megaNeB's 97,000-like tweet and TikTok edits from creators like @killmurphyyy.

Baby Keem's "Range Brothers" Featuring Kendrick Lamar

Q: Where did Baby Keem's "Range Brothers" Featuring Kendrick Lamar come from?

Reddit user u/watermaloneyyy posted a leak of the track to r/HipHopHeads on September 8, 2021, two days before the album's official release, and the "top of the mornin'" section instantly became the thread's talking point.

2021viral audio clipclassic

Published November 13, 2026

A September 2021 leak of Baby Keem's "Range Brothers" featuring Kendrick Lamar sparked viral mockery when listeners caught Lamar chanting "top of the mornin'" seven times at the four-minute mark2. Within a day, isolated clips of the bit racked up tens of thousands of retweets on Twitter, and by mid-September TikTokers were syncing skits and hat-tipping dances to the audio3 5.

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Overview

The joke centers on a single four-minute stretch of "Range Brothers," Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar's collaboration from Keem's 2021 album The Melodic Blue, where Lamar drops out of his verse and chants the Irish greeting "top of the mornin'" seven times in a row2. Fans found the switch so jarring, coming from one of rap's most lyrically serious voices, that the bit got isolated and passed around on its own almost immediately.

Most early posts mocked the greeting itself, with the top Reddit comment on the leak thread reading "Tappa the mornin" and pulling more than 400 upvotes2. Later edits leaned harder on visual gags, either dubbing the audio over unrelated clips or syncing dance moves to each repetition of the phrase4 5. The original track and the "top of the mornin'" tag read today as a Kendrick Lamar in-joke rather than a slip, since Baby Keem's The Melodic Blue went on to chart in the top three of the Billboard 2001.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Reddit (leak) / Twitter (viral spread)

Date

2021

Reddit user u/watermaloneyyy posted an OnlyFiles leak of "Range Brothers" to r/HipHopHeads on September 8, 2021, two days ahead of The Melodic Blue's official release, and the thread picked up over 690 upvotes before the album dropped2. Commenters zeroed in on the four-minute mark, where Lamar repeats "top of the mornin'" seven times in succession, a line that reads nothing like the rest of his verse2. The full song went public with the album on September 10, 20211.

Know Your Meme catalogued the joke as a leak-era moment rather than a planned marketing beat, tying the virality to the gap between Lamar's reputation and the goofiness of the chant6.

How It Spread

Twitter picked the clip up the same day the leak hit Reddit. On September 8, 2021, @0megaNeB tweeted an isolated audio clip of the "top of the mornin'" section with the caption "What the HELL is Kendrick Lamar doing bruh," and the post crossed 97,000 likes and 18,000 retweets within two days3. Replies piled up with lyric jokes and edits.

The next day, Twitter user @honestlykalvin layered the audio over footage of two dancing men, collecting more than 14,500 likes and 2,600 retweets inside a day4. TikTok picked up the sound almost immediately: creator @killmurphyyy posted a skit on September 9 about getting up at 4 a.m. for work set to the chant, pulling over 660,000 views in a day6. Music critic Anthony Fantano posted a hat-tipping dance video to the audio on September 10 that drew more than 990,000 views on TikTok and over 25,000 Twitter likes the same day6.

The Melodic Blue debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 the week of its release, so the joke ended up running parallel to real commercial success rather than overshadowing it1.

Timeline

2021-09-08

U/watermaloneyyy posts the "Range Brothers" leak to r/HipHopHeads; comments flag the "top of the mornin'" section[2].

2021-09-08

@0megaNeB tweets the isolated audio clip, which crosses 97,000 likes in two days[3].

2021-09-09

@honestlykalvin dubs the audio over a dancing-men clip on Twitter[4].

2021-09-10

The Melodic Blue releases officially, with "Range Brothers" as track eight[1].

2021-09-10

Anthony Fantano posts a hat-tipping dance synced to the chant, hitting nearly a million TikTok views[6].

How to Use This Meme

Posts typically isolate the "top of the mornin'" loop and pair it with video that lines up to the seven repetitions, often a dance, a cut of someone waking up, or a reaction shot that resets each time Lamar says the phrase3 5. Captions commonly mock-confuse Lamar for an Irish character or play up the cognitive dissonance of the delivery.