What happens when the baddest Bs aren’t in LA? They hold it down where they are. Adéla’s viral song has become an ode to big dreams from small places.
If your TikTok feed has recently been filled with people saying, “Ain’t always in LA, someone’s gotta hold it down in…” you’re probably wondering what exactly everyone is talking about. The phrase comes from Slovak singer Adéla’s song “Ain’t in LA,” which has taken on a life of its own on TikTok, inspiring people from small towns, provinces, schools, and cities around the world to put their own spin on it. But beyond the catchy intro and dreamy vocals, the song is really about what it means to have big dreams when you come from somewhere far from where everything seems to be happening.
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What Is Adéla’s “Ain’t In LA” Really About?
At first listen, “Ain’t in LA” sounds like the kind of song you put on while getting ready to go somewhere. It has the hypnotic intro, dreamy vocals, and cadence that immediately get stuck in your head. But listen a little closer, and the song is really about dreaming beyond your circumstances.
Where you live, how much money you have, what your family does, or whether you grew up in a city where people actually care about the industry you want to enter can all shape your starting point, but they don’t get to decide where you end up.
For Adéla, LA becomes a stand-in for that bigger life we imagine for ourselves. It’s the place where everything seems to be happening, where the people we see on magazine covers and music videos seem to belong. The song plays with that feeling of wondering whether your dreams would feel more possible if you were simply somewhere else. And that’s why the song has resonated with so many people. It’s for the girl growing up in a small town who spends her afternoons imagining a completely different life. It’s for the kid who knows exactly what they want to become before they have any idea how to get there. It’s for anyone who has ever looked around and wondered if they are too far away from the life they want.
Someone Has To Hold It Down In Canlaon
TikTok took that idea and ran with it. People started posting their own versions of the phrase, “Ain’t always in LA, someone’s gotta hold it down in…” before naming their hometown, school, neighborhood, or wherever they happen to be.
One Filipino version came from TikTok user @_brittsardalla, who performed the iconic ballerina intro from the “Ain’t in LA” music video and added the caption, “Can’t always be LA, someone has to hold it down in Masulog High School.” The video was so good that Adéla reposted it herself.
The punchline is the location. Masulog High School is in Canlaon City, Negros Oriental, hundreds of kilometers away from Manila, let alone Los Angeles. And yet, for a few seconds, this school in the province became part of a global conversation about ambition, pop cultureCultureshared traditions, beliefs, values, customs, arts, and social practices that define the identity and way of life of a community, society, or nation.Go to Culture Glossary, and where the “cool” places supposedly are.
In her repost, content creator and former beauty editor Belle Rodolfo put the Filipino version of the joke even better: “Ganito hindi yung someone had to hold it down in BGC/Makati/some other gentrified siyudad! Ahahaha.”
She has a point. There’s something particularly funny about imagining the trend happening in BGC or Makati when its charm comes from celebrating the places far outside that familiar Manila bubble. The whole thing is a little reminder that the people with the biggest personalities, the wildest dreams, and the most talent aren’t all concentrated in the cities we usually hear about. Some are in the provinces. Some are commuting for hours. Some are studying in schools like Masulog High. Some are simply figuring things out with whatever they have around them.
Adéla Knows What It’s Like To Dream From Somewhere Else
That idea is especially personal to Adéla. Part of the inspiration for “Ain’t in LA” came from looking through old photographs of her mother when she was 18. In one of them, she’s surrounded by posters of Madonna and Destiny’s Child. Her grandfather, who worked in the mines in Germany, would sneak Western pop posters back home during the Communist era, bringing little pieces of a world outside Czechoslovakia to his daughter.
There’s something so sweet about that image. A young girl looking at Madonna on her wall and imagining a world beyond the one she knew. Years later, her own daughter would become a pop star. It makes the idea behind “Ain’t in LA” feel even more personal. Before Adéla was performing for huge audiences, there was a girl somewhere in Czechoslovakia looking at pictures of pop stars and envisioning a life that felt very far away.
Why The Phrase Hit Me, Too
That story reminded me of my own childhood. I was a little gay boy growing up in Batangas, looking at magazines and dreaming about working for one someday. I had no idea how I would get there. I didn’t know anyone in the industry, I didn’t know what the path looked like, and I certainly didn’t know that years later I would actually find myself doing it.
At that age, I just had this very specific dream. I knew what I wanted, even when I had no idea how to make it happen. The magazine world felt so far away from my life in Batangas, but that distance never really stopped me from imagining myself in it. Maybe that is what makes “Ain’t in LA” resonate. There are so many people dreaming huge lives from places the world barely notices. The girl in the small town. The kid in the province. The teenager who has never been to LA but already knows they want to make it there. They might not know when it’ll happen or how they’ll get there. They just know they want something bigger.
Someone has to hold it down where they are while they figure it out.
Photos courtesy of Adéla
Frequently Asked Questions
Ain’t In LA is about dreaming beyond your circumstances. The song uses Los Angeles as a symbol for the bigger life people imagine for themselves, while suggesting that where you come from does not determine where you will end up.
Adéla is a Slovak singer who first entered the spotlight as a contestant on Dream Academy, the reality show that formed KATSEYE.
Part of the inspiration came from old photographs of Adéla’s mother at 18, including one where she is surrounded by posters of Madonna and Destiny’s Child. Adéla’s grandfather, who worked in the mines in Germany, would sneak Western pop posters back home during the Communist era.
The trend takes the song’s message and turns it into a playful challenge. People post videos saying, “Ain’t always in LA, someone’s gotta hold it down in…” before naming their hometown, school, neighborhood, or another place outside the world’s major cities.
One Filipino version came from TikTok user @_brittsardalla and featured Masulog High School in Canlaon City, Negros Oriental. Adéla reposted it with the caption, “Can’t always be LA, someone has to hold it down in Masulog High School.” The trend speaks to the idea that talented, resilient people and big dreamers can come from the provinces and small towns, too.
