"Do I Make You Proud" is a soul-pop song written for American Idolseason five winner Taylor Hicks by Tracy Ackerman, Andy Watkins, and Paul Wilson of the Absolute production team, and co-produced by Dave Way. The song was released as a single on June 13, 2006 from the Arista record label.

The lyrics communicate a feeling of pride for one's accomplishments after struggling with and then finally achieving a long-term goal, all while retaining one's humility. This reflects Hicks' sudden career transformation from an independent musical artist to a celebrity.

Hicks first performed the song on the finale of American Idol's fifth season, to which he received outstanding comments from all three judges. Simon Cowell correctly predicted that Hicks would win that year's American Idolwith the performance.

Along with "Do I Make You Proud", it includes, as a B-side track, his cover of The Doobie Brothers's "Takin' It to the Streets". The American Idoljudges loved his rendition of "Takin' It to the Streets" – Randy Jackson said it was not his favorite song from Hicks, but he was trying to comprehend his dance moves onstage. Paula Abdul said that the song was great and loved the energy and dancing. Simon Cowell "loved the song" and said that "that's what it's all about — having fun and being memorable." Cowell also said it was the best performance of the night.

Hicks' rendition of "Takin' It to the Streets" would become his first song to chart, peaking at number sixty-nine on the Hot 100, due to moderate sales of digital downloads only. The song was not released as Hicks's single, since "Do I Make You Proud" was to become his first single after he won the American Idolcompetition.

"Weird Al" Yankovic's 2006 album Straight Outta Lynwoodincluded a parody of "Do I Make You Proud", called "Do I Creep You Out". It is Yankovic's first parody of a singer from the Idol television series.

The song was chosen to be the theme for the first ever Asian Idol. December 16, 2007, Hicks performed it live together with 6 Asian Idol finalists in Jakarta, Indonesia.

The song appears on the game Karaoke Revolution Presents:American Idol.

Billboard magazineconfirmed that "Do I Make You Proud" sold 190,000 physical singles and 38,000 digital downloads during its first week, prompting a number-one debut on the Hot 100 for the issue dated July 1, 2006. It has been the 15th song out of over 900 number ones to debut at number one on the Hot 100 chart; all American Idol winner's first singles (with the exception of Ruben Studdard, Jordin Sparks, David Cook and Kris Allen) have gone to number one on the Hot 100 chart. [2]. As of September 2009, "Do I Make You Proud" has sold 672,000 singles. [3]

"Do I Make You Proud" remained number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 for one week, gradually declining until it left the chart after eight weeks, making it the first #1 single in the history of the US charts to fall off the charts in less than ten weeks. [4]