What Was Sexyy Red's First Official Viral Hit?

In what seems to be a little bit of time, the world has come to know Sexyy Red. The 25-year-old rapper has made her mark on the rap scene, and is well on her way to becoming an unshakable force in Hip Hop. In 2023, a number of publications recognized her as one of the year’s biggest breakout stars, and rightly so. While her swift rise to the top may not be unprecedented, it is certainly worthy of note. 

In a short amount of time, she has worked with some of music’s biggest artists, and we imagine it feels surreal. However, her success is certainly not undeserved, and her discography points to how much of a hard worker she is. Sexyy Redd now has a number of hits to her name. However, the most important of them all is arguably her first viral hit, and the song that put her on the map. 

On January 27, 2023, Sexyy Red released “Pound Town,” accompanied by a music video. Before then, she had released a number of tracks and one mixtape between 2019 and 2022. However, it was “Pound Town” that catapulted her to fame. In a May 2023 interview with Complex, the rapper spoke about how the track came to be. “I was in the studio, just on some lazy stuff, and my people was like, ‘Come on, you got more songs to record.’ And I'm like, ‘I ain't got nothing wrote down, come on now.’ So I went in the booth, and this was my first time ever freestyling. I heard the beat and just started rapping from there. The whole thing was a freestyle,” she said. 

Later in the interview, Sexyy Red admitted to having no expectations for the song becoming a hit. According to her, it was a “cool little fun song to sing with your friends.” However, she was pleasantly surprised when “Pound Town” started doing unprecedented numbers after its release. Subsequently, it gained traction on TikTok, largely due to the infamous lyrics: “My coochie pink, my booty-hole brown.” Soon, it sparked the viral Pound Town Challenge on the social media app, which earned Sexyy Red more internet fame. The popularity of the track on TikTok eventually led to it becoming the rapper’s first viral hit.

Subsequently, Sexyy Red linked up with Nicki Minaj to work on a remix of the viral track. On May 26, 2023, “Pound Town 2” was released, and as expected, fans ate it up. It didn’t take long after its release for “Pound Town 2” to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It became Sexyy’s first song to appear on the chart, and peaked at No. 66. In addition, it also appeared on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart, as well as the Rhythmic, and R&B/Hip Hop Airplay charts. On the year-end Hot 100 chart, “Pound Town 2” ranked in 64th place. 

While “Pound Town” and its remix did impressive numbers, Sexyy Red grew in renown. The rapper received co-signs from several celebrities, including Cardi B and Post Malone, among others. Furthermore, the success of the song kickstarted the very impressive feature run Sexyy Red was on throughout 2023. Her subsequent appearance on Drake’s “Rich Baby Daddy” can be traced back to this very track. Without a doubt, it is one of the most important songs in her discography. Although she originally did not regard “Pound Town” very highly, Sexyy Red will probably never forget the song.

[via]