Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest revision - August 7, 2025
This pancocojams post presents examples of foot stomping cheers that I categorize as "dance style "foot stomping cheers.
"Dance style" foot stomping cheers are a small sub-set of foot stomping cheers*. "Dance style" foot stomping cheers provide opportunities for people to show off their foot stomping and social dancing skills. Some dance style foot stomping cheer contains at least one dance of a dance or the name of a dance move/step. Other dance stle foot stomping cheers focus more generally on dance movements.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric and socio-cultural purposes
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those whose memories of these foot stomping cheers are included in this compilation.
-snip-
Click the tag below for other pancocojams posts about foot stomping cheers.
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SUB-CATECORIES OF FOOT STOMPING CHEERS
I've placed the foot stomping cheers that I've come across into these five different sub-categories:
-Introduce Yourself (My name is __) cheers
-Dance style foot stomping cheers
-Bragging/confrontational cheers
--Romantic relationships cheers
-Sports, games, and miscellaneous cheers
Many foot stomping cheers are combinations of more than one of these sub-categories.
****
EXAMPLES OF DANCE STYLE FOOT STOMPING CHEERS
These examples of this sub-category of foot stomping cheers may also be combinations of one or more other sub-category/sub-categories of foot stomping cheers.
These examples are presented in relative alphabetical order based on the first letter of the cheer's name.
The names of dances are written in italics the first time that they appear in each of these cheers.
I believe that all of the dances or the dance moves/dance steps that are mentioned in these cheers are either actual names of R&B or Hip Hop dances or are names of dances or motions (steps) that are the girls chanting these cheers (and possibly other people in their communities) made up or used as referents for particular dances or motions.
Additional versions that I have collected for some of these cheers don't include any names of dances/dance motions.
A, B
AH BOOM BOOM TICK
Hey Posse, YEAH break it down with the carwarsh
Yeah I said, A BOOM BOOM TICK, TICK A BOOM TICK (x2) (while
doing the carwash dance)
Hey Posse, YEAH break it down with the Unabomber
yeah I said, A BOOM BOOM TICK, TICK A BOOM TICK (x2)
I actually think this one was strictly a DC thing.
-_ConcreteRose, Aug 09 2012,
http://forum.blackhairmedia.com/i-went-downtown-to-get-a-stick-of-butter_topic345408_page4.html [This website is no longer available.]
-snip-
A commenter named Wynter in that discussion responded to this comment on that same date that "we use to sing this in
elementary school and Im from NYC".
**
A BULL DOG
A Bull Dog
A Bull Dog
A Bull Dog
My Name is Mellie (Yeah)
I came to show you Show you
How I rock a Bull dog A Bull Dog
And first you shake it (Don't break it)
And the[n] you roll it (Control it)
Then you pop it (Just Stop it)
And then you disco (Like Sisqo)
And then you dog it (Don't hog it)
Then you shoot it (Don't miss it!)
-Mellie York, Jun 24, 2017,
https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/black-girl-rhymes-what-was-yours-growing-up.1196979/page-2 "Black Girls Rhymes. What were yours growing up"
-snip-
This blogger indicated elsewhere in that discussion thread that she is from Brooklyn [New York].
This cheer was written in capital letters. The words in
parenthesis were probably chanted by the group except for the soloist. It's
likely that the repeated words "Show you" and "a bull dog) were
also chanted by the group except for the soloist.
The exact same cheer was posted in capital letters by dijah.love (Location: New York); Apr 25 2008; http://forum.blackhairmedia.com/lil-girls-hand-games_topic128043_page5.html [This website is no longer available.]. These two commenters might have been the same person.
The name "Sisqo" helps establish a date for this version of this cheer because, according to his Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisq%C3%B3 , the African American R&B and Hip- Hop singer whose stage name is "Sisqó" wasn't active until 1995. Therefore, a cheer with his name in it couldn't have been composed and chanted until 1995 at the earliest.
WARNING: Some of the examples in the lipstickalley.com and the blackhairmedia.com discussion threads contain profanity, sexually explicit content, and/or the "n word".
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BOOM BOOM TANGLE
"Boom boom tangle
tang boom tang
Yo Kenya [jumper’s name] yo
Let me see you do the
MC Hammer she said
Boom boom tangle
tang boom tang
Boom boom tangle
tang boom tang
Yo Kenya yo
Let me see you do the
Heavy D she said
etc
Yo Kenya yo
Let me see you do the
Roger Rabbit she said
The Butterfly
Honky Tonk
(1992, 1999)
When an artist’s name was sung -M.C. Hammer, Bobbie Brown,
Heavy D-the girls imitated the artist’s style, moves, gestures. The artists are
mixed in with a reference to a movie character, Roger Rabbit, and the
butterfly, a creature famous for changing his body"
-snip-
Anna R. Beresin's award winning 2011 book "Recess Battle" includes a chapter on Double Dutch rhymes and a chapter on "Steps". (Steps is a referent for the category of (mostly) girls' cheerleader cheers that I refer to as "foot stomping cheers". Anna R. Beresin categorizes "Boom Boom Tangle" as a Double Dutch rhyme, but-based on its word structure, I believe it actually is a foot stomping cheer.
****
C, D
CANDY GIRL (Example #1)
All: Candy Girl.
All my world.
Look so sweet.
Special treat.
Soloist #1: This is the way we do the Bounce.
Candy Girl.
Group: Do the Bounce. Do the Bounce.
Soloist #1: All my world.
Group: Do the Bounce. Do the Bounce.
Soloist #1: Look so sweet.
Group: Do the Bounce. Do the Bounce.
Soloist #1: Special treat
Group: Do the Bounce. Do the Bounce.
All: Candy Girl.
All my world.
Look so sweet.
Special treat.
Soloist #2: This is the way we do the Snake.
Candy Girl.
Group: Do the Snake Do the Snake.
Soloist #2: All my world.
Group: Do the Snake. Do the Snake.
Soloist #2: Look so sweet.
Group: Do the Snake. Do the Snake.
--Tazi M. Powell.(African American female); memories of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania in the mid 1980s (audio recorded in 1992);
Each soloist is supposed to come up with the name of a different dance and perform the steps to that dance at the end of her solo. The group then also performs that dance along with the soloist.
-snip-
The tune for this cheer was the same tune as the 1983 R&B song "Candy Girl" by New Edition. The group's words for that cheer are a slightly modified form of that R&B song's chorus:
"Candy girl
You are my world
You look so sweet
You're a special treat "
-end of quote-
In 2000 I observed
members of Braddock, Pennsylvania's chapter of Alafia Children’s Ensemble (after-school cultural group) perform this cheer with the exact same beat, and tune, and the same words
except that their version gave the names of R&B/Hip Hop dances that were popular then.)
does anybody know candy girl? little girls i know still play
it!
candy girl, oh my world
look so sweet, special treat
this is the way you do the "wop"(or the
"snake", or whatever dance is cute that u know the name of)
candy girl, say wop,wop
oh my world, say wop, wop
look so sweet, say wop,wop
special treat, say wop,wop(and then move on to the next
dance)
- bitsy196 (African American female; Los Angeles,
California);
http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/showthread.php?t=4123&page=4; “remember
when?”; 6-25-2003
-snip-
All of the participants in this discussion thread are members of historically Black Greek letter sororities. Based on some of the comments that these bloggers wrote and based on some of their screen names, my guess is that they were remembering their childhood play in the 1980 or the early 1990s.
****
CHARLIE BROWN (fragment)
Charlaaaay a Charlie Brown, what you say now?
Charlaaaay a Charlie Brown.
Hey Shoewhore!
That's me. Foxxxy as I wanna be. Gon' slide to the side, gon
turn that sh-t* around, gon break it on down with Charlie Brown!
Cuz you know that I can get down!
A--woooooooosh!
-Shoewhore,
http://www.lipstickalley.com/showthread.php/43158-Hood-Cheers/page5, "Hood Cheers" 08-19-2006
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in that discussed thread.
**
DISCO (Example #1)
disco (stomp stomp stomp stomp clap)
(group) d-i-s-c-o thats
the way we disco
(group) d-i-s-c-o thats the way we disco
(group) hey samantha
(solo) what
(group) sammy
(solo) huh huh
(group)what you gonna do when they
come for you
(solo) im gonna roll my eyes
(group) disco
(solo) stomp my feet
(group) disco
(solo) talk my stuff
(group) disco
(solo) and do my freaky nasty
(group) what what!?
(group) and do my freaky nasty
(repeat till everyone has a
turn)
-samantag1993; 6/29/05, cocojams.com [cocojams.com is the name of my no longer active multi-page cultural website.]
-snip-
This cheer used the tune for the hit 1987 R&B song "Bad Boys" by The Inner Circle. The line "Bad boys, what you gonna do when they come for you" is an often quoted lyric from that song that is also found in this cheer.
**
DISCO (Example #2)
[all] Disco 2x [repeat two times]
[group]Reeses pieces reeses my pieces
[group] (say sombodies name) what you
ganna do when they come for you
(the person who's name was said says) i'm gonna
step aside
[group] disco
[the person whose name was said says] roll my eyes
[group]disco
stomp my feet
[group] disco
and do the hilltoe ah
ha
[group]and do the hilltoe.
-Ciera S.; (African American girl), 10 years old; collected
by Azizi Powell, Pittsburgh, PA); May, 16, 2006
-snip-
Ciera S wrote the multiple words in brackets. I added the words "all" and "group" to clarify who was chanting at that time.
**
DO IT! DO IT!
All: Do it! Do it!
Do it! Do it!
(Now) Freeze!
Now stop and let the first row kick it!
[The girls in the first row recite the next lines, the girls
in the 2nd row stand in place in an agreed upon pose.]
First Row: With the “Drop Top”
[All the girls in this row do their own version of this
R&B dance].
[All the girls in the second row do their version of the
same dance along with the girls in the first row. This imitative movement
repeats while saying that phrase after each dance step].
First Row: And the “Roll Your Body”
Second Row: Do it! Do it!
First Row: Do “The Butterfly”
Second Row: Do it! Do it!
First Row: Bust “The stop”
Second Row: Do it! Do it!
First Row: Shake your rump.
Group: Do it! Do it!
Do it! Do it!
Freeze!
Now stop and let the second row kick it!
[Continue the same pattern as above, with some of the same dances and
some different dances-“The Pop”, “The Crybaby”, “The Rodeo”]
-African American girls, 8-12 years old, Alafia Children’s
Ensemble (Braddock, Pennsylvania), 1998; collected by Azizi Powell, 1998
-snip-
"Alafia Children's Ensemble" was a cultural program that I founded to introduce children ages 6-12 years to traditional African American game songs and to provide opportunities for children to share the singing games, hand clap rhymes, and cheers that they know with other participants. One after-school group in Braddock, Pennsylvania from 1998-2000. That group also included an introduction to djembe drums for children 9- 14 years old). A second Alafia Children Ensemble after-school group was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1999-2000. In addition, Alafia Children's Ensemble staff held one time or periodic special programming events throughout a number of Black neighborhoods in Pittsburgh and some of its surrounding communities (1998-2003).
****
E, F
ELEVATE YOUR MIND
elevate your mind
get yourself together
when i count to 3
do the "rock" with me...
I said a 1, 2, 3 do the "rock" with me...
repeat that last line 2 times then repeat the entire cheer
until everyone puts a “dance” in…
-AKA2D '91, 12/29.2009;
http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/showthread.php?t=4123&page=2 “remember
when”
FLY GIRL (Example #1)
Group: Fly girl one.
Fly girl two.
Pump it up. Ayesha.
Just like you do.
Soloist #1: My name is Ayesha.
Group: What?
Soloist #1: (And) I’m a fly girl.
Group: What?
Soloist #1: I’m rough and tough
And I can strut my stuff.
Cause I can sway.
Group: She can sway.
Soloist #1: And I can even do the go go reggae.
Let it flow
Group: She can even do the go go reggae
Let it flow.
Repeat the cheer from the beginning with the next soloist
who substitutes the name of a current dance step, always placing the word
reggae after the dance name. Continue until every group member has had one turn
as soloist.
- African American girls; ages 10 years Kinsley Association's Lillian
Taylor Summer Camp, , Pittsburgh, PA 1992; collected by camp counselor) Tazi Powell (Hughes)
-snip-
Girls and boys from various Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhoods, but especially from the East End of Pittsburgh since that was (and still is) Kingsley Association's location. The East End neighborhoods of Pittsburgh consist of the Hill District, East Liberty, Garfield, and Homewood) attended Lillian Taylor Camp. Regrettably, That large camp in Valencia, Pennsylvania was sold by Kingsley Association in 2005. Click https://historicpittsburgh.org/islandora/object/pitt:705.2313.KA for a brief historical note about Lillian Taylor Camp.
-snip-
"Fly Girl" foot stomping cheers have the same tune and tempo as the Boogie Boys' hit December 1985 Hip Hop song with that title.
FLY GIRL (Example #2)
Group: Fly girl one.
Fly girl two.
Pump it up, Shavona
Just like you do.
Soloist #1: My name is Shavona.
Group: Yeah.
Soloist #1: And I’m a fly girl.
Group: Yeah.
Soloist #1: I know karate.
And I got the body [pronounced “boh-day” to rhyme with
“karate]
All you got to do
is put a move in the groove.
You jump side to side.
Front to back.
And break it down with the
“Cabbage Patch”
-
FLY GIRL (Example #3)
Fly girl one flow girl two, pumping up _ just like you. My
name is _____ check, I’m a fly girl check. It only take one boy to rock my
world. Cuz she can “sway” (repeats) she can even do the pop, bust it with the
stop, even do the butterfly baby” (repeat) then you add dance moves to it like
concentration. Whoever messes up the order is out. Pleaseee tell me someone
remembers this? We stomped for the boom boom then clapped. I grew up in the projects and ONLY played
hand games with girl😂 yes I’m gay lol
-Scrillaholic, 2021,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-NKrzvqz_I&t=0s&ab_channel=Geneas "The 90s Cheers" [comment] This video is no longer available.
FOOTBALL
hening is our name and football is our game so hold the
sugar do the freddie cougar and step on back and do the cabage patch
-
****
G, H
****
I, J
JIGALOW
Refrain (Unison)
Jig-a-low, jig, jig-a-low
Jig-a-low, jig, jig-a-low
Part I
(Call) Jasmine: Hey Stephanie!
(Response) Stephanie: Say what?
Jasmine: In-troduce yourself!
Stephanie: Know what?
Jasmine: In-troduce yourself!
[They exchange roles here.]
Stephanie: My name is Ste-phanie
Jasmine: Yeah!
Stephanie: I got the mucle.
Jasmine: Yeah!
Stephanie: To do the hu-stle
Jasmine: Yeah!
Stephanie: I do my thang
Jasmine: Yeah!
Stephanie: On the video screen
Jasmine: Yeah!
Stephanie: I do the ro, ro, ro, ro, ro-bot (punctuates each
syllable with Do Do Brown)
Jasmine: She do the ro, ro, ro, ro, ro-bot (Jasmine imitates
Stephanie's version of the dance)
Refrain (Unison)
Jig-a-low, jig, jig-a-low
Jig-a-low, jig, jig-a-low
Part 2
Stephanie: Hey Jasmine!
Jasmine: Hey what?
Stephanie: Are you ready?
Jasmine: To what,?
Stephanie; To jig
Jasmine: Jig-a-low?
(unison): jig what?
[Exchanged roles again]
Jasmine: Well, My hands up high, my feet down low.
and THIS's the way I jig-a-low
[Jasmine creates a stylized move on THIS's]
Stephanie: Well, My hands up high, my feet down low.
and THIS's the way she jig-a-low
[Stephanie mimics Jasmine's stylized move on THIS's.]
-The Games Black Girls Play: Learning
The Ropes From Double -Dutch To Hip-Hop, Kyra D. Gaunt (University Press, New York, 2006, page
82);
-snip-
This example combines the foot stomping cheer
"Jigalow" with the foot stomping cheer "Introduce
Yourself".
"Jigalow" (also spelled "Gigalo") is [was?] usually performed as a partner hand clap rhyme
****
K, L
****
M. N
****
O, P
****
Q, R
ROCK THE BOAT
Rock the boat. Don't tip it over.
Rock the boat. Don't tip it over.
Hey, Aniya. "Hey what?"
Hey, Aniya. "Hey what?"
Can you rock the boat? "No way."
Can you rock the boat?! "Ok."
She slides. She slides. She do The Butterfly.
She dips. She dips. She shakes her little hips!
-ti55, Mar 16, 2008,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9QuTsAtQPY Aniya Rocks The Boat :-), published by ti55, Mar 16, 2008 [The lyrics are given in this video's summary of a preschooler performing this dance while her father chants the cheer off camera.
The "Rock The Boat" cheer has the title and tune as the R&B record by the Hues Corporation. That song was first released in 1973, but wasn't successful until its second release in 1974.
**
ROLL CALL
Is the Midwest up in hea? I see some of y'all!
1) Roll call check me out, roll call check me out
My name is ____, check
I go to school, check
I know I'm cool, check
Cause I can turn around, touch the ground, get back up and
party down. *We said this as we were doing it. My party down was usually a
variation of the cabbage patch with lots of 'tude.
-DoublePlatinum, June 25, 2018https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/black-girl-rhymes-what-was-yours-growing-up.1196979/page-3 "Black Girls Rhymes-What Were Yours Growing Up?"
-snip-
"'tude"= "attitude" [i.e.
"sassiness"]
****
S, T
****
U, V
****
W, X
****
Y, Z
****
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1. Azizi Powell, March 3, 2016 at 3:53 PM
"I focused on the 1957-1964 television series The Buddy Deane Show in part because I'm interested in documenting old school African American originated line dances, and the Buddy Deane Show's 1958 or 1959 clip of The Madison appears to be the earliest surviving film of that dance.
I believe that The Buddy Deane Show is important in part because it documents aspects of Americana such as the way the teenagers (or at least White teenagers] in the late 1950s and early 1960s dressed, danced, interacted, and also documented (through retrospective interviews such as the one quoted in Excerpt #2 of this post) attitudes and values of that time. For example, consider the comments of members of the "Committee" [the regularly featured White teenagers on that show] about boys having it worse than girls because boys weren't supposed to dance. I wonder if that applied to Black males as well as White males. Also, read the comments in that same excerpt about the series only wanting "attractive" teenagers as featured dancers. There are other socio-cultural comments in various YouTube comments threads about the Madison dance. I'll include some of those comments in an upcoming pancocojams series about that dance.
However, it seems to me that The Buddy Deane Show is more important because it exemplifies the need to go back and understand how the past has influenced the present with regard to systemic racism in Baltimore, Maryland and elsewhere in the United States.
That's one of the things that the Black Lives Matter movement is talking about. It's not just about police brutality."
**
2. Unknown, October 18, 2016 at 12:56 AM
"It was very interesting to see my conversation quoted in this article. Thank you for including me as one of the Buddy Dean family. In my on-going search for African American footage I stumbled across this article in Google. I still believe that footage is out there somewhere. MPT did a segment which included interviews with former African American dancers who appeared on the show. The information used was obtained from WJZ. Checking back with the studio, no one had information concerning footage of African American dancers. It would be a treasure to pass down to my future generations. I am here and on FB as well as NOBLE BRUN in the event the footage can be located. I graduated from an HBCU, lived through racism, marched on Washington with Martin Luther King, and was active in fighting injustices in Baltimore County at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Racism is passed down from one generation to the next. No matter how progressive we become, there will always be those who will still hang on to the tradition of hate. My parents didn't talk much about racism, and as a result I grew up learning to love everybody. When I became of age to understand it all I became motivated to make a difference.
**
Reply
3. Unknown, October 19, 2016 at 10:15 AM
"As you can see from the December thread my question concerning African Americans was totally dismissed by the Committee member who was speaking. So there you have it. Some fifty years later, the mindset is STILL the same. I'm sure they could have reached out to me via these posts, but did not. GOD HELP US!"
**
Reply
4. Anonymous, September 19, 2024 at 12:55 AM
"What was the name of the black group of girls, who won a contest on Buddy Deane Show."
**
Reply
5. Azizi Powell, September 19, 2024 at 5:52 AM
"Hello, Anonymous. I don't know the answer to your question. Hopefully, someone reading this will respond with that information.
I google searched your question and the AI (Artificial Intelligence) response was that no information was known, but shared some info regarding the Buddy Deane Show itself.
Also, as a result of reading your question, the link to this 1985 article came up:
<a href="https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/artsentertainment/john-waters-on-keeping-the-memory-of-the-buddy-deane-show-alive/">https://www.baltimoremagazine.com/section/artsentertainment/john-waters-on-keeping-the-memory-of-the-buddy-deane-show-alive</a> "Ladies And Gentlemen...The Nicest Kids In Town: Keeping the memory of The Buddy Deane Show alive." by John Waters
[comment continued below]
Reply
6.
"Here's the portion of that above cited article that focuses on integration and the Buddy Deane Show:
..."There was a change in the works.”
Part of that change was the racial integration movement. ”I had a lot of black friends at the time, so for me this was an awkward thing,” says Marie. “To this day, I’m reluctant to tell some of my black friends I was on Buddy Deane because they look at it as a terrible time.”
Integration ended The Buddy Deane Show. When the subject comes up today, most loyalists want to go off the record. But it went something like this: Buddy Deane was an exclusively white show. Once a month the show was all black; there was no black Committee. So the NAACP targeted the show for protests. Ironically, The Buddy Deane Show introduced black music and artists into the lives of white Baltimore teenagers, many of whom learned to dance from black friends and listened to black radio. Buddy offered to have three or even four days a week all black, but that wasn’t it. The protesters wanted the races to mix.
At frantic meetings of the Committee, many said, “My parents simply won’t let me come if it’s integrated,” and WJZ realized it just couldn’t be done. “It was the times,” most remember. “This town just wasn’t ready for that.” There were threats and bomb scares; integrationists smuggled whites into the all-black shows to dance cheek to cheek on camera with blacks, and that was it. The Buddy Deane Show was over. Buddy wanted it to end happily, but WJZ angered Deaners when it tried to blame the ratings.
On the last day of the show, January 4, 1964, all the most popular Committee members through the years came back for one last appearance."...
**
Reply
7. Azizi Powell, September 19, 2024 at 6:04 AM
"Here's another excerpt from that above cited 1985 John Waters "Ladies And Gentlemen...The Nicest Kids In Town": article:
"You learned how to be a teenager from the show. Every day after school kids would run home, tune in, and dance with the bedpost or refrigerator door as they watched. If you couldn’t do the Buddy Dean jitterbug, (always identifiable by the girl’s ever-so-subtle dip of her head each time she was twirled around), you were a social outcast. And because a new dance was introduced practically every week, you had to watch every day to keep up. It was maddening: the Mashed Potatoes, the Stroll, the Pony, the Waddle, the Locomotion, the Bug, the Handjive, the New Continental, and, most important, the Madison, a complicated line dance that started here and later swept the country.".
end of quote
All those dance names that are mentioned are African American originated dances.
I'll repeat this sentence that I already quoted above from that article:
"The Buddy Deane Show introduced black music and artists into the lives of white Baltimore teenagers, many of whom learned to dance from black friends and listened to black radio".
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