"We're Going To Kentucky" (Two Video Examples Of A Children's Singing Game In Which The Next Middle Person Is Choosen By Pointing At Someone Forming The Circle)

Going to Kentucky

Andrew Wichman, Jan 2, 2016

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post showcases two YouTube examples of the children's singing game "Going To Kentucky."

This post also provides a description of the strategy in which a person standing in the middle of a circle chooses the next middle person by pointing at someone forming the circle.

Addendum #1 to this post presents information about state fairs in the United States.
 
Addendum #2 to this post presents information about the event called "the Kentucky state fair" that inspired the singing game "We're Going To Kentucky".

Addendum #3 to this post presents my memories of playing the circle game "Going To Kentucky" in the 1950s.

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, cultural, and recreational purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are featured in these showcase videos and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube..
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Click https://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/switching-places-ring-games-part-1.html for the cocojams2 post entitled "Switching Places Ring Games (Part 1-Description & Other Comments)". 

Also, click http://cocojams2.blogspot.com/2014/11/little-sally-walker-ride-that-pony_9.html for Part II of that series. Part II provides text and video examples of two contemporary "switching places" circle games: "Little Sally Walker" (Walking Down The Street) and "Ride That Pony".

cocojams2 is another Google blogpost that I voluntarily curate. That blog focuses only on children's recreational rhymes and children's singing games.

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LYRICS FOR SHOWCASED VIDEO #1 

 i was going to Kentucky

i was going to the fair

When I saw a senorita

With flowers in her hair.

Oh, shake it, shake it, shake it

Shake it all you can

Shake it like a milkshake

And do the best you can.

Rumble to the bottom.

Rumble to the top

Turn around and turn around

Until you make a stop.
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There are multiple lyric versions of "Going To Kentucky". However, almost all of the versions of that song that I've found online include the lyrics "Shake it like a milkshake". 

I believe that the reason why the "shake it like a milkshake" line is so common online is that it was used in the version of that song that is featured in Iona and Peter Opie's book The Singing Game (Oxford University Press, 1985).Here's a brief excerpt from the Wikipedia page for the Opies: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona_and_Peter_Opie
"Iona Margaret Balfour Opie, CBE, FBA (13 October 1923 – 23 October 2017)[1] and Peter Mason Opie (25 November 1918 – 5 February 1982) were an English married team of folklorists who applied modern techniques to understanding children's literature and play, in studies such as The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951) and The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959). They were also noted anthologists, assembled large collections of children's literature, toys, and games and were regarded as world-famous authorities on children's lore and customs.[2]

Their research had a considerable impact on a number of research fields, including folklore and childhood studies, and altered perceptions of children's street culture and notions of play by emphasising the agency of children."...
-end of quote-
I believe that the Opies were/are so highly regarded by folklorists and by people interested in children's songs and play activities that they influence/d what would be considered the standard version for that particular line - but not all of the other lyrics in versions of "Going To Kentucky". 

This doesn't mean that "shake it like a milkshake" was the most often used line in versions of "Going To Kentucky" when the Opies collected those lyrics. However, it would be quite difficult to find out how common the "shake it like a milkshake" line was in the United Kingdom before the Opies published The Singing Game. Also, it would be quite difficult to find out if the "shake it like a milkshake" line was known or was common in the United States before 1985 when the Opies published their collection of children's rhymes and singing games from the United Kingdom.

Those lyrics are definitely not what I remember from my experiences playing that singing game in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the 1950s. [Read those lyrics below.] 

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If you remember "Going To Kentucky" BEFORE 1985, please share the lyrics to your version of that song in this pancocojams discussion thread.  Remember to include when (year or decade) and where (city/state if in the USA or city/nation outside of the USA) you learned that song. Thanks!  
 
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #2 - Going To Kentucky

Amy Abbott, Aug 24, 2016

1st day of class, 5th grade, 1st activity!

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LYRICS FOR SHOWCASED VIDEO #2 

i was going to Kentucky

i was going to the fair

To meet a senorita

With flowers in her hair

Oh, shake it, shake it, shake it

Shake it all you can

Shake it like a milkshake

And drink it from a can.

Oh, round da de bop, one two

Round da de bop, one two

Turn around and turn around

Until you make a stop.

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CHOOSING THE NEXT MIDDLE PERSON BY POINTING AT SOMEONE FORMING THE CIRCLE
This singing game begins with someone designated as the first middle person (i.e. the person standing in the center of the circle). 

The next middle person in these children's circle games is chosen by the middle person pointing to someone who is helping to form the circle.

Toward the end of each iteration of the song, the middle person turns around in a small circle with her or his eyes closed while  holding their right arm extended and one finger pointed.
In addition to closing both of their eyes, the middle person may cover their eyes with their other hand.
 
The people forming the circle continue to sing while standing still and watching the middle person turning and pointing.   

The person who is pointed to at the end of that iteration of the song becomes the new middle person and the singing game immediately begins again.

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ADDENDUM #1 - INFORMATION ABOUT STATE FAIRS IN THE UNITED STATES
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_fair
"A state fair is an annual competitive and recreational gathering of a U.S. state's population, usually held in late summer or early fall. It is a larger version of a county fair, often including only exhibits or competitors that have won in their categories at the more-local county fairs.

State fairs began in the nineteenth century for the purpose of promoting state agriculture, through competitive exhibitions of livestock and display of farm products. As the U.S. evolved from a predominantly agrarian to an industrial society in the twentieth century, and the more service economy of the 21st century, modern state fairs have expanded to include carnival amusement rides and games, display of industrial products, baking competitions, crafts (such as quilting and crop art), automobile racing, and entertainment such as musical concerts. Large fairs can admit more than a million visitors over the course of a week or two. The oldest state fair is that of The Fredericksburg Agricultural Fair, established in 1738, and is the oldest fair in Virginia and the United States.[1] The first U.S. state fair was the New York one, held in 1841 in Syracuse, and has been held annually since.[2] The second state fair was in Detroit, Michigan, which ran from 1849[3] to 2009.[4][5] The fair was revived in 2013 and has been held at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, Michigan ever since."...

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ADDENDUM #2 - INFORMATION ABOUT THE KENTUCKY STATE FAIR THAT INSPIRED THE SINGING GAME "WE'RE GOING TO KENTUCKY"
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_State_Fair
...."History
The [Kentucky State] fair was organized in 1816, just five years after the United States' first fair in Massachusetts. Fayette County farmer Colonel Lewis Sanders (no known relation to Colonel Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame) was the organizer. The event did not become an official state fair until 1902. The fair moved from city to city until 1907, when Louisville became the fair's permanent home. Churchill Downs has hosted the fair on three occasions, particularly during World War II. The fair moved to its current site at the Kentucky Exposition Center in 1956.

There were cancellations in 1862 to 1864, 1917 to 1918, and 1942 to 1944. The COVID-19 pandemic caused officials to present the 2020 fair in modified fashion."

ADDENDUM #3- MY MEMORIES OF PLAYING "GOING TO KENTUCKY" IN THE 1950s
There's no official documentation of when the song "We're Going To Kentucky" was first sung or when the "We're Going To Kentucky" singing game was first played.

I remember playing that circle game in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the 1950s (Black girls, probably ages 6-12 years) . We played that game in a large circle with one person in the middle. In these two YouTube videos the children marched counterclockwise around the circle until they sung the "Shake it" words. In contrast, I remember that we held hands with the person on either side of us and walked counterclockwise around the circle until the words "Shake it". (I don't remember the person in the middle singing or doing any motions for that part of the song.). In those videos and according to my memories of playing "Going To Kentucky", the children forming the circle stopped moving around the circle at the words "Shake it". The middle person still didn't sing but would start doing some exaggerated shaking motions and the people forming the circle would also do some exaggerated shaking motions.  When the people forming the circle sang the lyrics "Turn around"*, the middle person would  close her eyes and covered them with one hand while spinning around while extending her arm and pointing to the people forming the circle. The person who was pointed to at the end of that song was the next middle person and the singing game would immediately begin all over again. 

*Here are the words that I remember for this singing game:

Going to Kentucky
Going to the fair
To see a senorita
With flowers in her hair
Oh, shake it, senorita
Shake it all you can
All the boys are watching you
So do the best you can.
Rumble to the bottom [Do a hip shaking dance toward the ground].
Rumble to the top [Do the same hip shaking dance until you are again standing erect]
Turn around and touch the ground [Do these actions]
Until you holler S. T.O. P
speeels STOP.
-Black girls in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the mid 1950s

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Given the lyrics for the children's recreational song "We're Going To Kentucky", at least one of those annual Kentucky state fairs featured a Spanish woman ("a senorita") with flowers in her hair who did a hip shaking dance. That performance obviously was something unique enough to leave a lasting impression on whoever composed this song. 

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William G. Roy -Aesthetic Identity, Race, and American Folk Music (Excerpt From A 2002 Sociological Journal)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post quotes portions of a pdf of a 2002 Sociological journal paper written by William G. Roy. This paper is entitled "Aesthetic Identity, Race, and American Folk Music".

The content of this post is presented for folkloric, historical, and socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to William G. Roy for his research and writing. Thanks also to those who published this sociological paper online. 

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JOURNAL EXCERPT
 
https://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Comm/Courses/roy.pdf

Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 25, No. 3, Fall 2002 (°C 2002)

Aesthetic Identity, Race, and American Folk Music

William G. Roy

This article uses the concept of aesthetic identity to interrogate the relationship among musical genres, social movements and racial identity. American folk music has at some times subverted and other times reinforced the categorical boundaries between blacks and whites in twentieth-century United States. Aesthetic identity is the cultural alignment of artistic genres to social groups by which groups come to feel that genres represent “our” or “their” art, music, and literature. Genre boundaries then become social boundaries. Folk music inverts the usual relationship of genre and social boundaries. Folk music is always the culture of some “other,” either racial, regional, class, or national. Before it was called folk music, American vernacular music was much more racially integrated than the society around it, creolized across a spectrum from predominantly European to predominantly African influenced, but with most exhibiting both. Before the era of commercial recording, black and white musicians sang the same music, learned techniques and songs from each other, and shared a social world of performance. The concept of folk music was created by academic elites, but remained unfamiliar to most people until the organized left took it on as a cultural project in the late 1930s and 1940s.

Both academic elites and political activists constructed the genre as an alternative to the racialized genres that the commercial recording industry had dubbed “race records” and “hillbilly music.” American communists and their allies were especially self-conscious about using folk music as an instrument of racial solidarity in a particularly racially polarized era. Submerged by McCarthyism until the 1960s, folk music was revived as a racially unified genre, but quickly became whitened. My explanation for why the folk revival was so white revolves around three factors: the continuing legacy of commercial racial categories, the failure of the New Left to control music through a cultural infrastructure as effectively as had the old left, and the cultural momentum of an understanding of folk

page 460

music of the “other” at a time when blacks were trying to enter a system that white middle-class youth were rejecting.

The sociology of culture is premised on the notion that boundaries between aesthetic genres correspond to social boundaries between groups. One of the major mechanisms by which such correspondence operates is that groups claim genres as their own and tie their group identities to the aesthetic standards of “their” genre. Folk music presents a special problem for the relationship of social and cultural boundaries because while folk music has been a prime instrument for solidifying social boundaries between groups, no one claims to be “folk.” Those who use folk music to solidify boundaries are using music not their own. In the American setting, one of the social boundaries shaped by folk music has been racial.

This article will explore how aesthetic identities of race have interacted with the construction of American folk music over time, reviewing how the racial identity of folk music has shifted between black and white poles in response to the changing social context of musical production and the interaction of musical institutions. American folk music has gone through three distinct phases of racial identity. The concept of folk music was invented within a European nationalizing project and applied in this country to white Anglo-Saxon Americanism. It was then transformed into a left wing political project in the 1930s as “the people’s music,” taking an explicitly bi-racial cast. Finally, the folk revival of the sixties, despite its close association with the Civil Rights movement, reverted to its Anglo-Saxon identity. It is especially challenging because the discursive definition of folk music has substantially departed from what the “folk” themselves were singing.

[…]

GROUPS, GENRES, AND RACE

The underlying assumption of this analysis is the principle that cultural objects and cultural forms reflect and constitute boundaries between social groups

page 461

(Griswold 1987; DiMaggio 1987).2 One of the basic principles of the sociology of culture is homology, the notion that the boundaries between cultural forms align with the boundaries between groups. Different audiences have preferences for different artistic and musical genres, and conversely those genres often help constitute boundaries between groups. High and low art are perhaps the clearest example. Not only is classical music preferred more by upper-class audiences, but the consumption of such culture signals upper-class status, creating a social boundary between upper- and lower-class groups (Bourdieu 1984). Just as David Halle’s pathbreaking work has torpedoed the simpleminded association of
high-status culture to abstract art, I want to enrich our analysis of racial boundaries and musical genres. Cultural genres create boundaries between racial, gender, age, national, sexual orientation, and other groups. Bourdieu, for example, has emphasized that cultural capital is not only a quality that individuals use for personal advacement but also a means by which groups use cultural distinctions a d knowledge to advance collectively by erecting invidious social boundaries. Thus, groups adopt an aesthetic identity, the appropriation of a cultural boundary to solidify a group boundary. They adopt an aesthetic standard to define an invidious distinction that marks us vs. them. Just as the aesthetic standard of formalism, for example, creates an invidious distinction between those with the cultural capital to appreciate high art and music, other standards demarcate the boundaries of ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual orientation. Identification with a group becomes measured by adherence to particular aesthetic standards.

I want to emphasize that aesthetic identity does not mean that every member of a group embraces the aesthetic standards attributed to the group. To suggest that would be a not very subtle form of stereotyping. Not all whites like country and western any more than all blacks enjoy soul music. But people recognize that they are members of groups that are associated with particular genres. Individual blacks may not savor jazz, but they often take pride in it. Individual Finns may honor Sibelius even if they never listen to him, because they identify with Finlandia.

The development of aesthetic identities is a social construction more than a matter of individual tastes. Moreover, the construction of genres often involves the erection of boundaries between groups. Black music and white music were pitted against each other. Youth culture is pitted against the older generation. Nationalist music blossoms in time of war. That is not to say that every genre arises in a conflict between concrete groups.

Composers seek greatness by transcending existing canons to found new genres—classical over baroque, romantic over classical, impressionist over romantic, etc. We can imagine a continuum with the putatively pure artistic boundary on one end and the equally unattainable group-based genres on the other. Genres may be

page 462

placed along this continuum, or may move along it as groups become more and less identified with particular genres as “their” music.

Folk music, however, complicates the connection between group identity and group culture. As the music of “a people” or “a folk” it conforms to the principle of homology. But, in fact, folk music is typically the appropriation by one group, usually a dominant group, of someone else’s music, fortifying social boundaries by breaching the principle of homology. No one calls themselves “the folk.” “The folk” are always some “other.” So the question becomes: Who creates the genre of folk music, for what purpose, and who embraces it as “our” music?  Whose aesthetic identity is defined by folk music and what social boundaries are constituted?

WHO CONSTRUCTS AN AESTHETIC IDENTITY FOR FOLK MUSIC?

The commonsense answer is that folk music was there before it was called folk music, and belonged to some traditional group as “their” music. In this perspective, folk music is nothing but the name that outsiders give to vernacular music that “the folk” have been making all along. However, this simple answer is historically misleading. Concrete, identifiable groups constructed, negotiated, clashed with, and reconstructed folk music on the basis of claims about and on behalf of particular social constituencies.

For the first generation of folklorists, folk music was the music of a national people. The notion of “folk music” was first articulated by nationalist intellectuals creating an imagined community whose collective genius fostered the literature, poetry, lore and music that gave voice to a distinctive people. The English, like other Europeans, discovered an allegedly ancient national culture of the people least touched by modernity, the rural poor. By the turn of the twentieth century, English scholars despaired that the English peasantry had been corrupted by modernization and declared that the purest form of Anglo-Saxon folk music was to be found in the unsullied hollows and hills of the American Appalachians. Cecil Sharp, an Englishman who towered over the first generation of American folklorists, explicitly declared that the greatness of the American folk tradition was racial. He believed that racial inheritance determined a culture’s value: The mountaineers’ “language, wisdom, manners, and the many graces of life that are theirs, are merely racial attributes which have been gradually handed down generation by generation” (Filene 2000, p. 25).

However, the folklorist’s portrait of the rural poor not only misrepresented their musical tastes, but helped racialize American vernacular music in general. The music that ordinary people were singing, especially in the South, included much more than the Anglo-Saxon ballads the folklorists had identified as “folk.”

While many Southerners did sing old ballads, the larger corpus of vernacular music was a creolized synthesis of European and African influences. By privileging the

[page 463]
European influences within the category of “folk,” the music that represented “the people” was confined to “white” music.…

[…]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This paper was presented at the UCLA LeRoy Nieman Center Conference on New Cultural Frontiers, May 2001, and the Annual Conference of the American Sociological Association, August 2001 in Anaheim, California."
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Pancocojams Editor's Note: This pdf consists of 10 pages: 459-469; including references.

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On April 8, 2026 Michelle Obama Used The Word "Janky" To Describe What The USA Is Like Now. What Does "Janky" Mean

Edited by Azizi Powell

This pancocojams post presents the history and definitions of the word "janky" and its derivative word "jank".  

The content of this post is presented for linguistic and socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

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AI OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH WORD "JANKY"
[retrieved on April 9, 2026]

AI Overview

"Janky" (meaning low-quality, unreliable, or broken) originated in African-American slang during the late 1960s to 1980s, rising to mainstream popularity via hip-hop in the 1990s. It likely derived from "junky" (trashy) or "jinxed," and is often associated with the slang terms skanky or stanky.

Key Aspects of the Word "Janky"

Origin: Often associated with urban and youth subcultures in the United States, appearing in rap music and slang dictionaries in the early 1990s.

Early Usage: Ice Cube utilized "janky" in the 1993 song "Really Doe," helping bridge the term from regional slang into wider use.

Potential Roots: While the exact etymology is uncertain, it is often considered a variant of "junky" (from junk). Other theories suggest a link to "jinxed" or early regional variations like "jinky".

Definition: Describes items or situations that are poorly made, unreliable, or shady/shifty.

Evolution: The term was strongly established by the 1990s, with later references like the 2009 movie Janky Promoters cementing its usage in the public lexicon.
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Merriam-Webster is cited as the source for this AI Overview write-up.

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THREE URBAN DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS FOR "JANKY" AND "JANK"
Pancocojams Editor's Note:
As of April 9, 2026 at 11:05 AM EDT there are five pages of definitions for the word "janky" on urban dictionary.com. All entries to urban dictionary.com are reader submitted.

I believe that all of these entries refer to vernacular words (slang) the originated in the United States and most of these words are from African American Vernacular English.

Disclaimer:
Definitions that are included in urban dictionary.com may not be accurate or may no longer be accurate.

Some urban dictionary.com definitions include profanity and/or sexually explicit words/phrases. 

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From  https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=janky
"janky

(adjective) inferior quality; held in low social regard; old and delapidated; refers almost exclusively to inanimate material objects, not to people

We tried to pick up on these girls waiting for the bus, but I was driving my sister's janky 1989 geo metro so we just got clowned instead.

by the jankinator March 25, 2003 "
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This is the top ranked definition as of April 9, 2026 at 11:05 AM EDT.

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"janky

adjective used to describe a person, place or thing which is questionable, f-cked* up, wrong, strange, broken down, undesirable, and/or just some thing you can't think of another word for. The origin of this work is explained somewhat in the conversation example. Friends and I were sitting around drinking coffee one morning, and I was bitching about my empty cup when my friend blamed the lack of coffee on the "janky ass coffee maker." I have since heard the word in the movie Friday.

Other forms: janked, janked up, janked out,

I was dancing with my friends and some janky old mutherf--cker* came up to me and started grabbin' my ass!

Michelle: yo, when's that coffee going to be ready?

Crystal: I don't know. This janky ass coffee maker takes forever.

He was a weirdo and made me feel all janked out, so I left.

I didn't get into Harvard. I don't know what I'm going to do now - it's totally janked up.

by Michelle Stinnett August 27, 2005"
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*This word is fully spelled out in this comment

This definition is added in this pancocojams post because it includes other forms of the word "janky". 
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This is the earliest definition for "janky" in urban dictionary.com:
"Poorly constructed or of poor quality

This janky shirt she gave me is falling apart.

by Werd December 8, 2002"

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ARTICLE EXCERPT ABOUT MICHELLE OBAMA USING THE WORD "JANKY"
From https://ca.news.yahoo.com/michelle-obama-bluntly-describes-version-200849192.html "Michelle Obama Bluntly Describes The 'New Version' Of America With A 5-Letter Word" published by Pocharapon Neammanee, April 8, 2026

"Former first lady Michelle Obama shone a light on the current state of the U.S on Wednesday, quipping that the country is in its “janky” era, but that Americans can grow from it.

“You know, there are versions of the country that happen, right? And the new version doesn’t make the old one bad,” Obama told comedian Hasan Minhaj on the show she co-hosts with her brother, “IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.”

“It’s necessary for growth, and I think we’re in just a janky version, right?” she said.

Minhaj agreed and then asked, “May I curse, Mrs. Obama?”

“You may,” she replied.

“Yeah, **** is jank right now,” he said. “Super jank.”

Obama put an optimistic spin on things, adding that “with each version, we learn something about ourselves as a country.”

“Right now, I’m kind of digging the way folks are beginning to respond, right?” she continued. “I mean, Minnesota, powerful stuff. I mean, it was a powerful reminder of what a community of people can do and are willing to do to protect one another. You know, when you’re not so janky, you don’t have to prove that, right?”

Michelle Obama noted that as a country, “We haven’t been this janky for a while, and I think our muscle of understanding our truth just got a little lax.”…
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The asterisks were the way that sentence was written in that article. I'm not sure what letters the asterisks substitute for in that sentence.

Notice the award winning comedian and actor Hasan Minhaj who was being interviewed by former United States first lady Michelle Obama said that "jank" was a curse word. I don't know if he also considers "janky" to be a curse word. Furthermore, I don't know if Michelle Obama considers "jank" and/or "janky" to be a curse word. I doubt if she would have used the word "janky" on her show if she thought it was a curse word.  

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COMMENTS ABOUT "JANKY" AND "JANKY" FROM A 2011 REDDIT.COM DISCUSSION THREAD 

This is a complete reprint as of April 9, 2026 as of 12:14 PM EDT

All of these comments are from 2011.

Numbers are added for referencing purposes only

https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/13uv2x/origin_of_jank/

1. Creatingapathy
"Origin of "jank" 

Today my friend asked me where I learned the word "jank" or "janky" (meaning questionable in quality or obsolete) and I realized I have no idea. I am 20 something black female from Houston but she mentioned two Californian speakers who also use the term. Does anyone know (or have any theories) about where the term might have originated?"

*[deleted]
"Check out lexicalist.com for some hints are geographic distribution: jank and janky

Given current trends, I suspect "jank" is backformed from "janky". Google n-grams aren't terribly helpful because Janky shows up as a name. However, there's a 1972 book called Black English that shows up in search results for that year:

... suggested the further addition of joggling board jinky board/janky board sweet mouth bad mouth yard ax 'untrained preacher' shout [as a religious expression] Some of the last two lists must be loan translations, not direct borrowings from the ...

There's no more available. But a joggling board is a thing, and online stock photos ( not google images results) labeled "jinky board" show teeter-totters, tree swings, and the like—so maybe the usage extended to wobbly playground equipment.

Anyway, I have no idea, really, but I can imagine "janky board" as a variant of "joggling board", with "janky" taking on the obvious meaning of "wobbly", and then drifting from there to "low quality".
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There is an active website named "lexicalist.com" but I can't find a page on the geographic distribution of any words also I can't find any online content for the 1972 book Black English to see if the word "janky" was included in that book and, if so, what was its definition/s.

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3. [deleted], 2011
"Well, a quick search reveals that most sources say the etymology of the word is unknown or uncertain, so I doubt anyone will be able to give you a satisfactory answer, except for anecdotes.

I hear the word all the time in the UK, though, so I doubt it's an American thing. Unless, of course, the same slang term developed independently."

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4. iwsfutcmd, 2011
"personally, I picked it up from a Missouri-and-Portland, OR raised (white) friend. He said it was "meth slang" (he had a rough patch earlier in life)."

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5.  mutatron, 2011
"I first heard it here in Dallas, probably 5 or 6 years ago, working for a web application company. At least one former colleague from that time went to live and work in Irvine, CA. It's possible it's just an invented term that originated here.

edit: Or maybe not. I've found a couple of references from the 1990's, and then a boom in usage around 2003. The guys I was working with were using it before I got there, which was in 2007, but almost certainly would not have been using it in the 1990's because they were too young."

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6.  TimofeyPnin, 2011
"Pretty sure it originated in a black, urban community and spread (as recent research suggests is a frequent occurrence). I remember hearing it as early as the late 90s. I was in Texas at the time, come to think of it. I have not heard much use of it in the north, now that I think about it a little more. I rarely if ever hear it in Harlem, but hear it occasionally in D.C.

This is entirely unscientific, but I associate it with words like ratchet and yo (noun)."

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7.  goqo, 2022
"From a fairly different background, my Asian gamer friends from California also use it, albeit a bit ironically"

**
8.  LittleKey
"For what it's worth, I'm a 19 year old Southern Californian and I've never heard that word before."

**
9. [deleted]
"Not too much help on the origin, but here in Alabama we say "Jank-ass"

 Ex: that jank-ass car cain't run for sh-t*.
-snip-
*This word is fully spelled out in this comment

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The Custom That Patti Labelle, Fantasia, LaSun Pace And Some Other African American Female Singers Have Of Kicking Off Their Shoes While SANGING

LaShun Pace - I Know I've Been Changed

 malacomg,  May 23, 2014

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Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a two part pancocojams series about YouTube comments from African Americans about a video that was published on YouTube in 2014 of Lashun Pace sanging the Gospel song "I Know I've Been Changed".

In addition to that YouTube video, this post presents some comments from that YouTube video's discussion thread about Lashun Pace and the custom that she, Patti Labelle, Fantasia and some other African American female vocalists' (especially Gospel singers) have of stepping out of their shoes when they are sanging.

Addendum #1 of this post presents my editor's comment from the closely related 2018 pancocojams post "Patti LaBelle's & Fantasia's Custom Of Kicking Off Their Shoes or Taking Off Their Shoes During Their Performances (with two videos)" https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/09/patti-labelles-fantasias-custom-of.html

Addendum #2 of this post presents an AI Overview about Patti Labelle and Fantasia removing their shoes when they sing certain songs. 

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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/04/lashun-pace-sanging-gospel-song-i-know.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post presents some information about Lashun Pace and presents some comments from that YouTube video's discussion thread that include affirming responses about Lashun Pace sanging that Gospel song.

A definition of the word "affirm" in the phrase "affirming comments" and a definition of "sanging" are included in this post.

The content of this post is presented for religious and cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Lashun Pace for her musical legacy and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks to the film maker for this clip and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube. Thanks also to Patti Labelle and Fantasia for their musical legacies. 

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DEFINITION OF "SANGING"
"Sanging" is a present tense English language verb that means "to sing very well, especially to sing soulfully very well"

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SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THE DISCUSSION THREAD OF THIS SHOWCASE YOUTUBE ABOUT LASHUN PACE KICKING OFF HER SHOES WHILE SINGING THE GOSPEL SONG "I KNOW I'VE BEEN CHANGED 

Numbers added for referencing purposes only.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzMKZcoFTrM

2016

1. @empressmystique260
"You know it gets serious when the shoes come off. She went from singing to ministering in an instant. Anointed!!"

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2. @bakaribrown9642
''Lordt you know when the kitten heels come off. You gone be laid over in the spirit"
-snip-
Pancocojams edito's note: "Kitten heels" is a reference for women's shoes with a very small heel.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten_heel ]

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3. @tiarrezachery
"lolllll"

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Reply
4. @iampeaches1924, 2017
"bakari brown lol lord Jesus I cracked up at kitten heels 😂😂"

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Reply
5. @BellaPenns,2018
"A year later, and we are still falling out at this comment! LOL!

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2017

6. @brickcitychick5404
"U know this Sista is sangin from the heart...and straight out of her church shoes! 😄😄 SAAANG!!!"

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Reply
7. @joliegarrett, 2019
"Now THAT'S SANGIN'!!! HALLELUJAH!!!"

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2018

8. @11sophiemarie
"In church, or any gospel event. When a big woman, in sequins or rhinestones, kicks off her shoes: oh the Holy Spirit is coming in and it's going to get real.

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Reply
9. @tashawnayoung3782
"Yes when them shoes come off its over

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10. @benjaminjeanes998
"Step in that water sister.. Amen"

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11. @cutetimesinfinity3368
"Yeah. You already know."

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12. "lilsparrow7845, 2018
"Lol....yup..".

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13. @atlsongbyrd6084, 2019
"Right! I saw Fantasia take her shoes off at Aretha Franklin's funeral and I knew it was about to be on and poppin lol!"

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14. @abigailvincent4909,2020
"Especially the kitten heels"

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15. @bridgettstrawbridge, 2020
"☝🏽🙏🏽🙌🏽✨✨✨ For Show 😅😅😅 GLORY TO "GOD"!!!"

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2019

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2020

@Gr8LilLady
16. "Daniel Hawkins, when they kick off dem shoes OH! It's gone down! If you don't believe Sista La Shaun Pace, then you Betta ask Sista Patti Labelle 🤣😳😍"

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@czahnie
17. "Those shoes came off and she stuck her whole foot in that song !"

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18. @PeaceNHairGrease
"👠🥿👡👢💪🏽🗣🗣🗣it’s time to sang"

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2021

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2022

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2023

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2024

19. @felicialockett6606
"SAAAAAAAAANG GIRL!!!!!!!!!  This never gets old...."

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20. @mamared41
"You already know its going down when the shoes come off"

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21. @DivaStylesbyTrish
"Good Lord she sings this song!"

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22. @sonwabosiyengele106
"When she took her shoes off and sang "I step in the water" 🙏❤️"

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2025

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2026

23. @kentglover1953
"It was over when she took off her shoes and stepped in the water!🙏🏽"

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24. @hattiethompson8540
"once them shoes come off...you will be delivered ❤️❤️❤️❤️🙏🙏

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ADDENDUM #1- PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
From https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/09/patti-labelles-fantasias-custom-of.html "Patti LaBelle's & Fantasia's Custom Of Kicking Off Their Shoes or Taking Off Their Shoes During Their Performances (with two videos), September 2, 2018

Here are the links and titles for these YouTube videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGmz0LIu9j0 "Fantasia Performs Musical Tribute (Aretha Franklin Memorial)", published by Alan Kahn, Aug 31, 2018

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVhUPpChcSI "Patti Labelle - Isn't it a shame" ; golden0eye, Mar 10, 2007

Some commenters in these two videos' discussion threads suggest that taking off her shoes has become an expected feature of Patti LaBelle's "over the top" performances which also used to include rolling on the stage while continuing to sing.

A number of commenters write that Fantasia takes off her shoes because she is modeling her performance style after Patti LaBelle.

A few commenters wrote that the reason why these singers take off their shoes is to get comfortable.

At least one commenter wrote that Fantasia takes off her shoes because she's a country gal (from High Point, North Carolina). But, the "country gal" theory doesn't fit Patti LaBelle who is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

However, many commenters in these two featured discussion threads believe that Patti LaBelle and Fantasia remove their shoes because it is a Pentecostal church custom to do so. If I correctly understand what was written, those commenters indicated that people who take off their shoes are either feeling the Holy Spirit or they are getting ready to feel the Spirit, i.e. getting ready to "shout", "getting happy”, “going in”.

One interpretation of those comments* could be that when women feel like they are getting ready to "go in" i.e. "get happy", they take off their high heel shoes** so that they can do the Holy dance better (without less restraints). An explanation for this precaution is that when people are feeling the Spirit, in the "heat of that moment", they might hurt themselves or hurt someone else if their shoes go flying because they have "danced out of their shoes" (because they are dancing so energetically). To prevent this from occurring, a person who feels the Spirit coming on might prevent these mishaps by taking off their shoes.
-snip-
*As a Baptist from the Northern region of the United States, I have a few recollections of (mostly) women being supported by church nurses because they felt the Spirit. However, I've seen very few people (in my home church or any other Baptist of Methodist churches that I've attended) doing a holy dance, with or without their shoes on.

**The comments in those discussion threads about taking off your shoes when you are about to feel the Spirit appear to refer only to women (who presumably are wearing high heels, since that is almost always the shoe fashion for church or other formal occasions

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ADDENDUM #2- AI OVERVIEW
[retrieved on April 8, 2026]

"Patti LaBelle famously kicks off her shoes during live performances as an authentic, often spontaneous, showmanship move born from practical necessity. She has explained that the habit began when her feet (specifically a corn) hurt, forcing her to shed heels to perform comfortably, and it evolved into an iconic sign of passion and a way to connect with the audience.

Patti LaBelle’s Shoe Kick:

Origin: The 80-year-old diva confessed on the Sherri show that the habit started because her corn was hurting.

Significance: It serves as a sign of her "passing the shoe" or offering a completely uninhibited performance, often requested back at the end of the show.

Viral Moments: Many videos on YouTube and Facebook show her removing her shoes, sometimes throwing them, and sometimes having artists like Prince in the audience witness it.

Recent Events: She continued this tradition in 2023, performing barefoot while singing "If Only You Knew".

Fantasia's Performance Style:

Like LaBelle, Fantasia is known for extremely passionate, emotive, and visceral performances that often involve high-energy movements.

While Patti is specifically known for "kicking off" shoes, performers like Fantasia often remove shoes or perform barefoot to fully embody the raw emotion of a song, creating a similar "no-shoes" experience of raw, authentic performance.

Both artists use this technique to signify that they are letting go of inhibition, focusing entirely on delivering a raw, vocal performance."
-snip-
Notice that this AI Overview doesn't mention that the singers remove their shoes when they sing certain songs-especially Gospel songs-because they are feeling the Holy Spirit. As a result I think that this write-up is incomplete if not inaccurate.  

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This concludes Part II of this two part pancocojams series.

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