Songfacts®:

• "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)" was the soundtrack to the biggest dance craze of 2015. It's actually two dances. For The Whip, just keep your arm straight and swing it in front of your face like you're driving a car. The Nae Nae is similar, but with an open hand. They combine very well.
  
  The Nae Nae is based on the character Sheneneh, played by Martin Lawrence in his '90s TV series Martin. Sheneneh is a very brash woman who is extremely confrontational but gets offended easily. When she gets excited or upset, she makes an exaggerated "talk to the hand" gesture, which is the dance move here.
• Silento is an Atlanta-based hip-hop artist who was just 17 when this song was released. His debut single, it was helmed and co-written by Bolo Da Producer.
• The Whip and Nae Nae were both popular dances. Silento's big idea was to combine them. "I just got tired of seeing people do them so I started doing my own rendition where I was doing them both!" he said.
  
  Soon after the song's release, fans decided to follow Silento's instructions, sharing their whipping and Nae-Naeing dance moves on Vine and YouTube. It became a viral hit, quickly going over a billion views on YouTube. This was before TikTok, which certainly would have made the dance even more ubiquitous.
• Silento got some local support for this song before he even recorded it. He told Tunecore: "I had been singing it and dancing to it in school already. People were always asking me to do it, they already knew it."
  
  So when the song began to go viral, it was no surprise to the rapper. "When people are asking you do something repeatedly, it's like, you just know. People liked it, so I kept doing my dances!"
• Silento originally recorded "Watch Me" as a 15-second Instagram video. The teenage rapper was asked by Billboard magazine if he thought it would be such a hit after he recorded a full version of the song. He replied: "Yeah, I knew that it was a banger because everybody already liked it. In the video, which I recorded on my phone, somebody was beating on the desk at school. I took that same beat to [producer] Bolo and he went off of that and made a different beat. Once the audience gives you feedback, that's how you know."
• Silento was (mock, we hope) bereft when he was not honored for this track. "No #Grammy Nomination???? Wow?," he tweeted.
• The song earned Silento a recording contract. On May 1, 2015 he was signed to Capitol Records. Later that year, he featured on a track called "Dessert" that was also a viral hit, but it went downhill from there. In 2021 he was indicted for murder in the shooting death of his cousin. In 2024 he was sentenced to 30 years in jail.