Edited by Azizi Powell
This is Part IV of a four part pancocojams series about the African American term "chocolate city".This post presents an example of a foot stomping cheer called "Chocolate City" which my daughter Tazi Hughes collected at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania summer camp in 1992 from a Washington D. C. girl who was visiting her cousins in Pittsburgh. This post is an excerpt of a 2016 pancocojams post entitled "How I Started Collecting Examples Of African American Foot Stomping Cheers" https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/09/when-i-started-collecting-examples-of.html .
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-parliaments-chocolate-city-1975.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post showcases a YouTube sound file of the Parliament's 1975 Funk record "Chocolate City". Information about the Parliaments and their "Chocolate City" album & single is included in this post. Lyrics for the parliaments' record "Chocolate City" are also included in this pancocojams post along with some explanations of some of those lyrics.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/11/youtube-commenters-write-about-which.html
for Part II of this pancocojams series. This post showcases a sound file of the Parliament's Funk 1975 record "Chocolate City" and presents selected comments from several YouTube discussion threads of that record. Most of those comments refer to United States cities that were considered "chocolate city in the 1970s and/or now.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/11/united-states-top-chocolate-cities.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. That post presents the percentages of Black people in 67 cities in the United States that have a population of over 100,000 people. (according to the United States Census Bureau, 2020 census). These cities can be considered "chocolate cities" based on an expanded definition of that term which began around the mid 20th century as a nickname for Washington, D.C.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric and recreational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the unknown person/s who composed this cheer, thanks to all those who contributed this foot stomping cheer, and thanks to Tazi Hughes for collecting this foot stomping cheer.
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
Although the title of the 2016 pancocojams post that I am excerpting is "How I started collecting examples of African American Foot Stomping Cheers", that post also includes examples of cheers that my daughter Tazi Hughes (then TMP) shared with me and collected without me being present.
This excerpt focuses on the "Chocolate City" cheer. "Chocolate City" is an example of a foot stomping cheer that was disseminated from one city in the United States to another by a visitor to that city, and -at least for a short time-was passed on to other girls after its initial introduction,
This post presents the percentages of Black people in 67 cities in the United States that have a population of over 100,000 people. (according to the United States Census Bureau, 2020 census). These cities can be considered "chocolate cities" based on an expanded definition of that term which began around the mid 20th century as a nickname for Washington, D.C.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-parliaments-chocolate-city-1975.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post showcases a YouTube sound file of the Parliament's 1975 Funk record "Chocolate City". Information about the Parliaments and their "Chocolate City" album & single is included in this post. Lyrics for the parliaments' record "Chocolate City" are also included in this pancocojams post along with some explanations of some of those lyrics.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/11/youtube-commenters-write-about-which.html
for Part II of this pancocojams series. This post showcases a sound file of the Parliament's Funk 1975 record "Chocolate City" and presents selected comments from several YouTube discussion threads of that record. Most of those comments refer to United States cities that were considered "chocolate city in the 1970s and/or now.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/11/united-states-top-chocolate-cities.html for Part III of this pancocojams series. That post presents the percentages of Black people in 67 cities in the United States that have a population of over 100,000 people. (according to the United States Census Bureau, 2020 census). These cities can be considered "chocolate cities" based on an expanded definition of that term which began around the mid 20th century as a nickname for Washington, D.C.
The content of this post is presented for folkloric and recreational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the unknown person/s who composed this cheer, thanks to all those who contributed this foot stomping cheer, and thanks to Tazi Hughes for collecting this foot stomping cheer.
****
PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
Although the title of the 2016 pancocojams post that I am excerpting is "How I started collecting examples of African American Foot Stomping Cheers", that post also includes examples of cheers that my daughter Tazi Hughes (then TMP) shared with me and collected without me being present.
This excerpt focuses on the "Chocolate City" cheer. "Chocolate City" is an example of a foot stomping cheer that was disseminated from one city in the United States to another by a visitor to that city, and -at least for a short time-was passed on to other girls after its initial introduction,
I first became aware of when my daughter collected an example of that cheer in 1992 from school age Black girls who attended Lillian Taylor camp in Valencia, Pennsylvania. Lillian Taylor camp sessions were sponsored by Kingsley Association, a non-profit community organization that is still based in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. However, Lillian Taylor camp closed in 2005.
Independent of my daughter Tazi, I later collected the exact same example of "Chocolate City" in 1999 from two Black girls who attended Fort Pitt elementary school in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood of Garfield. Garfield is located very near the much larger Pittsburgh neighborhood of East Liberty where Kingsley Association is located.
My daughter was a Fort Pitt teacher during the time that I collected the "Chocolate City" foot stomping cheer and other foot stomping cheers from Fort Pitt students. However, when I asked her, my daughter told me that she hadn't taught "Chocolate City" to anyone at Fort Pitt school or anywhere else. I therefore assume that these Fort Pitt students learned this cheer from a sibling or someone else who attended that 1992 Lillian Taylor Camp summer session seven years before.
Independent of my daughter Tazi, I later collected the exact same example of "Chocolate City" in 1999 from two Black girls who attended Fort Pitt elementary school in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania neighborhood of Garfield. Garfield is located very near the much larger Pittsburgh neighborhood of East Liberty where Kingsley Association is located.
My daughter was a Fort Pitt teacher during the time that I collected the "Chocolate City" foot stomping cheer and other foot stomping cheers from Fort Pitt students. However, when I asked her, my daughter told me that she hadn't taught "Chocolate City" to anyone at Fort Pitt school or anywhere else. I therefore assume that these Fort Pitt students learned this cheer from a sibling or someone else who attended that 1992 Lillian Taylor Camp summer session seven years before.
I haven't come across any other example of the "Chocolate City" foot stomping cheer other than the one that is given in this pancocojams post. If you remember this cheer, please share the version you remember with demographic information (particularly city/state and decade you remember it) in the comment section of this post. Thanks!
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EXCERPT OF "HOW I STARTED COLLECTING EXAMPLES OF (MOSTLY) AFRICAN AMERICAN FOOT STOMPING CHEERS
by Azizi Powell, September 8, 2016, https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/09/when-i-started-collecting-examples-of.html
Cassette Taping My Daughter's Cheers- mid 1980s
by Azizi Powell, September 8, 2016, https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/09/when-i-started-collecting-examples-of.html
Cassette Taping My Daughter's Cheers- mid 1980s
I first became aware of what I now called foot stomping cheers around 1985 when I observed my then twelve year old daughter and her girlfriends of similar ages chanting cheers while doing choreographed routines. I knew that my sisters, my girlfriends, and I hadn't performed cheers like that when we were children and pre-teens. And since I hadn't seen or heard those types of cheers being performed before, I wondered if this was a new form of children's recreational activity. Since I considered (and still consider) myself as an amateur community folklorist, I began recording and writing down the words to those cheers.
In those days I used the term "sidewalk cheers" to refer to the subset of children's cheerleader cheers that I now call "foot stomping cheers". Most of the "sidewalk cheers" that I collected in the mid 1980s were from my daughter Tazi [pronunciation: TAH-zee] Powell (now Hughes).
Around 1992 I asked Tazi to show me how she and her girlfriends "did" foot stomping cheers. As she demonstrated the foot stomping and alternate hand claps (or body pats), I audio recorded those performances on a cassette tape. Although I recall transcribing some portions of that tape, I misplaced those transcriptions. In 1996 I found that cassette tape, and another cheer cassette tape and I transcribed both of those tapes.
[...]
In those days I used the term "sidewalk cheers" to refer to the subset of children's cheerleader cheers that I now call "foot stomping cheers". Most of the "sidewalk cheers" that I collected in the mid 1980s were from my daughter Tazi [pronunciation: TAH-zee] Powell (now Hughes).
Around 1992 I asked Tazi to show me how she and her girlfriends "did" foot stomping cheers. As she demonstrated the foot stomping and alternate hand claps (or body pats), I audio recorded those performances on a cassette tape. Although I recall transcribing some portions of that tape, I misplaced those transcriptions. In 1996 I found that cassette tape, and another cheer cassette tape and I transcribed both of those tapes.
[...]
Lillian Taylor Camp: 1989-1992 [edited Nov. 11, 2022]
In the summers of 1989 - 1992 when she was still in college, my daughter Tazi served as a Kingsley Association counselor for its Lillian Taylor Camp summer sessions. Lillian Taylor Camp was a camp for children ages 5-12 years of age. The camp grounds were outside of Pittsburgh in Valencia, Pennsylvania. Most of the boys and girls who attended Kingsley Association sponsored sessions of Lillian Taylor camp were from the East End neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, including the mostly Black working class neighborhoods of East Liberty and Garfield. My daughter and I have lived in the neighborhood of East Liberty since 1978.
Kingsley Association is still located in the neighborhood of East Liberty. During the time that I directly collected foot stomping cheers My daughter taught at Fort Pitt Elementary School, and I was a substitute teacher there for a short time. Fort Pitt Elementary School closed in 2013.
In 1992 part of Tazi's responsibilities was to serve as the camp's "cheer coach". At the end of each four week segment of that camp, each group had to participate in a camp show for the entire camp, their parents, and other guests. Most of the girl groups chose to perform an example of a foot stomping cheer. In her role as cheer coach, Tazi either taught those groups foot stomping cheers from the mid 1980s or helped them decide on a cheer to perform that a member or some members of their group already knew. She would then help the members of each group learn the words to their cheer and also supervise them while they practiced the cheer's foot stomping routine (as all members of the group had to perform together, and not just those who were "good at keeping on beat").
In her role as cheer coach, Tazi heard some of the same exact cheers that she and her girlfriends did in the mid 1980s. She also learned different versions of those old cheers. And she learned cheers that were completely new to her. Knowing about my interest in what I then called "sidewalk cheers", Tazi received permission to audio tape some examples of those cheers. She then played that cassette tape for me, and demonstrated those cheers' foot stomping/hand clapping routines. I also attended one camp show and saw the campers perform some of those cheers. Although I believe that I recorded that tape in 1992, I didn't transcribe those cheers from that tape until 1996.
Having campers from various Pittsburgh neighborhoods was one way that cheers were spread from one Pittsburgh community to another. In addition, campers learned examples of cheers that came from other cities. In 1992 one of the girls who attended Lillian Taylor Camp was from Washington, D.C. and was visiting her Pittsburgh cousin. That's how the cheer "Chocolate City" found its way into my cheer collection:
CHOCOLATE CITY*
All: Chock-let City.
Chock chock-let City.
Chock-let City.
Chock Chock-let City.
Soloist #1: My name is [girl says her name or nickname]
And I'm walkin.
Group: She's walkin.
Soloist #1: I'm talkin.
Group: She's talkin.
Soloist #1: I'M TALKIN TO [girls stop using first step beat]
All the boys in Chock-let City [begin new faster tempo step beat]
Get down to the nitty gritty.
Long time no see.
Sexy as I wanna be.
Some hittin me high.
Some hittin me low.
Some hittin me on my-
Don't ask what.
Group: What?
Soloist #1: My b-u-tt butt
That's what.
Repeat from the beginning with the next soloist who says her name or nickname. Continue this pattern until every girl in the group has had one chance as the soloist with this cheer.
-T.M.P, tape recording of African American girl campers, 1992.(Lillian Taylor Camp)
-snip-
* "Chocolate City" is the nickname for "Washington, D.C."
-snip-
Tazi told me that some campers wanted to say "Pittsburgh City" instead of "Chocolate City". But they were out voted.
Note that I collected the exact same words for "Chocolate City" in 1999 from Chatauqua (African American female, 10 year old) & Ralene (African American female, 12 years old , both from the Garfield section of Pittsburgh, PA, (at Fort Pitt School); Fort Pitt School was in the Garfield section of Pittsburgh. Garfield is very near the East Liberty neighborhood were my family lived (and where I still live). Furthermore, the majority of Lillian Taylor campers were from East Liberty as that was (and still is) where Kingsley Association, the organization that owned that camp, was/is based.
My daughter Tazi was a teacher at Fort Pitt Elementary school in 1999 when I collected this cheer. I wasn't a substitute teacher at that school until 2007 and we didn't begin Fort Pitt's Alafia Children's Ensemble program* until 2003. In any event, Tazi indicated that she didn't teach anyone at Fort Pitt School that "Chocolate City" cheer and she was surprised to learn that any students in that school knew that cheer. I have never read or heard that cheer anywhere else and I think it's very likely that those two girls learned "Chocolate City" from someone who attended that particular Lillian Taylor camp session, or from someone who learned that cheer from an attendee of that 1992 camp session."
-end of 2016 excerpt-
-snip-
*Alafia Children's Ensemble (Braddock, Pennsylvania): 2002 - 2004 was one of the ways that I collected foot stomping cheers. I wrote this portion of this post in 2016 for the pancocojams "How I Started Collecting Foot Stomping Cheers" post:
"From around 2002 until around the end of 2004, I received Pittsburgh multicultural Initiative grants to organize and co-led (with my daughter Tazi Powell) a children's group that I named "Alafia Children's Ensemble". This first "chapter" of Alafia Children's Ensemble was located in Braddock, Pennsylvania, Braddock is about forty minutes from my home in Pittsburgh. Braddock's Alafia sessions were held for one and a half hour, one evening a week and consisted of two groups that shared a beginning assembly and an ending assembly. One group learned and performed traditional and adapted African American game songs. Members of this group were encouraged to share examples of rhymes and cheers that they knew with the possibility that those examples would become part of the group's performance repertoire. Members of Braddock's Alafia game song & cheers component were mostly African American and mostly girls ages 5-12 years. The other half of Braddock's Alafia group consisted of a beginners' djembe (African drum) class. Although it wasn't designed that way, every member of that component were African American boys between the ages of 8-12 years."...
In the summers of 1989 - 1992 when she was still in college, my daughter Tazi served as a Kingsley Association counselor for its Lillian Taylor Camp summer sessions. Lillian Taylor Camp was a camp for children ages 5-12 years of age. The camp grounds were outside of Pittsburgh in Valencia, Pennsylvania. Most of the boys and girls who attended Kingsley Association sponsored sessions of Lillian Taylor camp were from the East End neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, including the mostly Black working class neighborhoods of East Liberty and Garfield. My daughter and I have lived in the neighborhood of East Liberty since 1978.
Kingsley Association is still located in the neighborhood of East Liberty. During the time that I directly collected foot stomping cheers My daughter taught at Fort Pitt Elementary School, and I was a substitute teacher there for a short time. Fort Pitt Elementary School closed in 2013.
In 1992 part of Tazi's responsibilities was to serve as the camp's "cheer coach". At the end of each four week segment of that camp, each group had to participate in a camp show for the entire camp, their parents, and other guests. Most of the girl groups chose to perform an example of a foot stomping cheer. In her role as cheer coach, Tazi either taught those groups foot stomping cheers from the mid 1980s or helped them decide on a cheer to perform that a member or some members of their group already knew. She would then help the members of each group learn the words to their cheer and also supervise them while they practiced the cheer's foot stomping routine (as all members of the group had to perform together, and not just those who were "good at keeping on beat").
In her role as cheer coach, Tazi heard some of the same exact cheers that she and her girlfriends did in the mid 1980s. She also learned different versions of those old cheers. And she learned cheers that were completely new to her. Knowing about my interest in what I then called "sidewalk cheers", Tazi received permission to audio tape some examples of those cheers. She then played that cassette tape for me, and demonstrated those cheers' foot stomping/hand clapping routines. I also attended one camp show and saw the campers perform some of those cheers. Although I believe that I recorded that tape in 1992, I didn't transcribe those cheers from that tape until 1996.
Having campers from various Pittsburgh neighborhoods was one way that cheers were spread from one Pittsburgh community to another. In addition, campers learned examples of cheers that came from other cities. In 1992 one of the girls who attended Lillian Taylor Camp was from Washington, D.C. and was visiting her Pittsburgh cousin. That's how the cheer "Chocolate City" found its way into my cheer collection:
CHOCOLATE CITY*
All: Chock-let City.
Chock chock-let City.
Chock-let City.
Chock Chock-let City.
Soloist #1: My name is [girl says her name or nickname]
And I'm walkin.
Group: She's walkin.
Soloist #1: I'm talkin.
Group: She's talkin.
Soloist #1: I'M TALKIN TO [girls stop using first step beat]
All the boys in Chock-let City [begin new faster tempo step beat]
Get down to the nitty gritty.
Long time no see.
Sexy as I wanna be.
Some hittin me high.
Some hittin me low.
Some hittin me on my-
Don't ask what.
Group: What?
Soloist #1: My b-u-tt butt
That's what.
Repeat from the beginning with the next soloist who says her name or nickname. Continue this pattern until every girl in the group has had one chance as the soloist with this cheer.
-T.M.P, tape recording of African American girl campers, 1992.(Lillian Taylor Camp)
-snip-
* "Chocolate City" is the nickname for "Washington, D.C."
-snip-
Tazi told me that some campers wanted to say "Pittsburgh City" instead of "Chocolate City". But they were out voted.
Note that I collected the exact same words for "Chocolate City" in 1999 from Chatauqua (African American female, 10 year old) & Ralene (African American female, 12 years old , both from the Garfield section of Pittsburgh, PA, (at Fort Pitt School); Fort Pitt School was in the Garfield section of Pittsburgh. Garfield is very near the East Liberty neighborhood were my family lived (and where I still live). Furthermore, the majority of Lillian Taylor campers were from East Liberty as that was (and still is) where Kingsley Association, the organization that owned that camp, was/is based.
My daughter Tazi was a teacher at Fort Pitt Elementary school in 1999 when I collected this cheer. I wasn't a substitute teacher at that school until 2007 and we didn't begin Fort Pitt's Alafia Children's Ensemble program* until 2003. In any event, Tazi indicated that she didn't teach anyone at Fort Pitt School that "Chocolate City" cheer and she was surprised to learn that any students in that school knew that cheer. I have never read or heard that cheer anywhere else and I think it's very likely that those two girls learned "Chocolate City" from someone who attended that particular Lillian Taylor camp session, or from someone who learned that cheer from an attendee of that 1992 camp session."
-end of 2016 excerpt-
-snip-
*Alafia Children's Ensemble (Braddock, Pennsylvania): 2002 - 2004 was one of the ways that I collected foot stomping cheers. I wrote this portion of this post in 2016 for the pancocojams "How I Started Collecting Foot Stomping Cheers" post:
"From around 2002 until around the end of 2004, I received Pittsburgh multicultural Initiative grants to organize and co-led (with my daughter Tazi Powell) a children's group that I named "Alafia Children's Ensemble". This first "chapter" of Alafia Children's Ensemble was located in Braddock, Pennsylvania, Braddock is about forty minutes from my home in Pittsburgh. Braddock's Alafia sessions were held for one and a half hour, one evening a week and consisted of two groups that shared a beginning assembly and an ending assembly. One group learned and performed traditional and adapted African American game songs. Members of this group were encouraged to share examples of rhymes and cheers that they knew with the possibility that those examples would become part of the group's performance repertoire. Members of Braddock's Alafia game song & cheers component were mostly African American and mostly girls ages 5-12 years. The other half of Braddock's Alafia group consisted of a beginners' djembe (African drum) class. Although it wasn't designed that way, every member of that component were African American boys between the ages of 8-12 years."...
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This concludes Part IV of this pancocojams series.
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