Screenshot from Childish Gambino's Redbone official audio video showing a face framed by a blue radial headdress on a dark background

Redbone

2017audio remix / catchphraseclassic

Published September 26, 2026

Redbone is a 2016 Childish Gambino single that became a Twitter remix format in May 2017 after user @chloestixx posted a heavily muffled version captioned as what the song would sound like from a house party bathroom. The joke spawned dozens of situational audio remixes that flipped the sensual R&B track into an absurd sound design exercise.

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Overview

Redbone is a Childish Gambino song from his 2016 album Awaken, My Love! that became a Twitter audio-meme format in May 20171. The joke rides on a specific sonic quality: heavy low-pass filtering and muffled reverb that makes the track sound like it's playing through a wall. Users caption these edits with increasingly specific scenarios, most of them set in the bathroom of a house party2.

The format works because Redbone's slow, bass-heavy groove already sounds moody and distant, so cranking the muffled effect up sells the bit instantly3. Once @chloestixx set the template, remixers stacked new sound layers over the muffled audio, urination sounds, video game noises, rapper adlibs, so each variation reads as a mini sound-design gag rather than a straight repost2. The song was already culturally charged from its use in Jordan Peele's Get Out, which helped keep it lodged in listeners' heads through the spring of 20171.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter
Creator
@chloestixx
Date
2017

"Redbone" was released on November 17th, 2016 as the second single off Awaken, My Love!, and Donald Glover's original video was uploaded to YouTube the same month4. It became Childish Gambino's first top 40 hit and later played over the opening and closing credits of Get Out1.

The meme itself started on May 14th, 2017, when Twitter user @chloestixx posted a heavily muffled edit of the track with the caption "What Redbone would sound like while you're making out in the bathroom of a house party." The tweet pulled in tens of thousands of retweets and set the template for everything that followed51.

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How It Spread

On May 21st, 2017, Twitter user @alanmora1 replied to @chloestixx with his own edit captioned "what redbone would sound like while you're peeing in the bathroom of a house party," layering toilet sounds over the muffled track6. That reply is what turned a one-off tweet into a repeatable format, and a wave of situational remixes followed within days1.

One of the biggest offshoots came from Twitter user @YungMondi, who dropped Famous Dex adlibs over the muffled Redbone audio7. XXL covered the remix on May 22nd, 2017, quoting Mondi's blunt explanation for why he made it: "People on Twitter are stupid"2. Other variants imagined the song playing while someone was vlogging like Adam22, playing Gamecube, or heard in reverse, each riffing on the same bathroom framing1.

The pileup got confusing enough that a user posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop on May 23rd, 2017 asking what the Redbone meme was about, which is a decent marker for how quickly the joke saturated Twitter that week1. The format stayed a clean touchstone for muffled-audio jokes long after it faded from the timeline.

Timeline

2016-11-17

Childish Gambino releases "Redbone" as the second single from Awaken, My Love!

2017-02-24

Jordan Peele's Get Out opens in theaters with "Redbone" playing over the opening and closing credits, keeping the song in cultural rotation.

2017-05-14

Twitter user @chloestixx posts a muffled edit captioned as what Redbone would sound like from a house party bathroom, kicking off the meme.

2017-05-21

@alanmora1 posts a reply version with urination sounds over the muffled audio, cementing the situational-remix format.

2017-05-21

@YungMondi releases a Famous Dex adlib remix that quickly becomes one of the more shared variations.

2017-05-22

XXL publishes an article covering the Famous Dex adlib remix and the wider wave of Redbone edits.

2017-05-23

A user posts to /r/OutOfTheLoop asking about the Redbone meme flood on Twitter.

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