Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest revision- August 13, 2025
This is Part III of a three part pancocojams series on Boogie Down Production's 1987 Hip Hop classic track "Criminal Minded".
This post presents a YouTube video clip and a few word examples of the Double Dutch jump rope rhyme "Criminal Minded. Those rhymes were inspired by Boogie Down Production's Hip Hop record with that name.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2025/08/boogie-down-productions-criminal-minded.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. That post showcases a YouTube sound file for that track and presents information and lyrics about that track.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2025/08/boogie-down-productions-1987-classic.html_ for Part II of this pancocojams series. That post showcases the same YouTube sound file for Boogie Down Production's classic track "Criminal Minded" that was included in Part I. That post also presents selected comments from the discussion thread of that sound file.
The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and recreational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to the unknown composers/ of the "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch rhyme. Thanks also to Thanks to Boogie Down Production (KRS One and Scott La Rock) for composing the Hip Hop song "Criminal Minded".
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to Philly Girls Jump and all others who chanted and may still chant the "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch chant.
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
"Criminal Minded" is the title of Double Dutch jump rope rhymes. The first few lines of those rhymes and the tune of those rhymes clearly show that they were inspired by Boogie Down Production's 1987 Hip Hop song "Criminal Minded".
**
What "criminal minded/you've been blinded" mean
"Criminal minded" Double Dutch rhyme is a diss (insult).
The first line labels the person being addressed as a "criminal" (meaning that person is no good).
The second line indicates that the person has been blinded (meaning that something has caused that person to be unable to see, or unable to see clearly.) This line refers to that person's lack of judgement.
The rest of the rhyme gives an example of the person's inability to see and/or lack of judgement (i.e. The person being addressed has been looking for the latest style of gym shoes ("sneakers", "tennis shoes", etc.) like those that the chanter wears but hasn't found a pair of those shoes (or claims that she hasn't found those shoes because she can't afford to buy them.) Instead, she wears inexpensive gym shoes that shows how poor she is and is a sign of her lack of status.
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References to Footlocker and Payless, two brand names of gym shoes (tennis shoes, sneakers)
"Criminal Minded" Double Dutch rhymes are diss (insult, put down") rhymes that include movement commands. The chanters of "Criminal Minded" jump rope rhymes praise themselves for wearing athletic shoes (known as tennis shoes, sneakers, gum shoes etc.) that were purchased at Foot Lockers, an American multi-national chain of stores that sell athletic shoes and athletic apparel. "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch rhymes also diss people who are wearing discount (inexpensive) athletic shoes that were purchased at Payless. (Payless stores operated in the United States from 1956-2004).
Here's a quote from the Wikipedia page for the Payless chain of stores: "In the 1980s, Payless was widely known in the U.S. for its Pro Wings line of discount sneakers, which often had Velco straps instead of laces."...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payless_(footwear_retailer)
-end of quote-
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Information about the examples of the "Criminal Minded rhymes that I've come across to date. Most of these examples are associated with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
As of August 11, 2025*, I've only come across seven examples of or comments about the Double Dutch rhyme "Criminal Minded". [This statement is updated whenever I come across another example or comment.]
(I didn't collect any Double Dutch rhymes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and in some of its nearby cities from the late 1980s to 2009. That was when I was directly collecting recreational rhymes and cheers in some of the mostly Black neighborhoods of those communities. I have only vague memories of seeing Double Dutch being performed in some of those neighborhoods during that time. As a small subset of that population, my daughter and her girl friends didn't jump single rope or do Double Dutch when they were school girls in the 1970s and 1980s.)
Four of these "Criminal Minded" examples are from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (also known as "Philly") and one comment about that rhyme may have been written by a person from Philadelphia since it was posted on a discussion thread for a YouTube video short about Philly Double Dutch. No geographic location was given for the remaining two comments.
The fact that most of these "Criminal Minded" examples-and probably also that comment- are from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania doesn't necessarily mean that that city is where the "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch rhyme was first composed. it also doesn't necessarily mean that the "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch rhyme was chanted in Philadelphia more than anywhere else. However, those conclusions could be true.
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The earliest example of the "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch rhyme
The earliest date for an example of "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch rhyme that I have found is 1999. (Example #1 below and Example #3 below). However, one commenter who is quoted below (after the showcased video) writes that she remembers this rhyme from the late 1980s. That late 1980s date makes sense since these rhymes were clearly inspired by Boogie Down Production's hit 1987 Hip Hop record "Criminal Minded".
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Information about and excerpt from the source of two of the early examples of the "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch jump rope rhyme
The abovementioned 1999 Double Dutch rhyme and the 2004 Double Dutch example of "Criminal Minded" are from Anna R. Beresin's award winning 2010 book Recess Battle Playing, Fighting, and Storytelling. That book provides commentary about and examples of children's recreational rhymes from African American girls' Double Dutch rhymes, hand clap rhymes, and steps. in Mills School (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) in 1991, 1992, 1999, and 2004.
Here's an excerpt of a review of Anna R. Beresin's longitudinal study of girls at the Mills School [an elementary school] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: book: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265768783_Recess_Battles_Playing_Fighting_and_Storytelling_by_Anna_R_Beresin_review
"Anna Beresin’s text Recess Battles: Playing, Fighting, and Storytelling provides a unique window into the world of children’s games, words, and gestures while on the playground. Based upon her ethnographic field research spanning years at one urban school, Beresin’s text is notable for the close attention to detail she has given her field experiences as well as the compelling synthesis that she culls from her years of data as she crafts her argument. She writes that not only is recess needed in our schools, but that play is “nothing less than the serious negotiation of individual expression and culture” (p. 132) for children in the school yard.
[...]
-end of quote-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/07/excerpt-about-recreational-double-dutch.html for Part II of a four part pancocojams series on recreational Double Dutch rhymes. Part II features an excerpt from the chapter "Double Dutch And Double Cameras: Studying The Transmission Of Culture In An Urban School" by Ann Richman Beresin. This chapter is part of the 1999 book Children's Folklore: A SourceBook edited by Brian Sutton-Smith, Jay Mechling, Thomas W. Johnson, and Felicia McMahon (Utah State University Press, originally published in 1995).
Also, click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/08/similarities-differences-between-ann-r.html for a 2017 pancocojams post that compares Anna R. Beresin's description of "steps" and her conclusions about the cultural meaning of that recreational activity from her 2010 book Recess Battle: Playing, Fighting, and Storytelling.
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EXAMPLES OF AND COMMENTS ABOUT "CRIMINAL MINDED" DOUBLE DUTCH RHYMES
This content is numbered for referencing purposes only.
CRIMINAL MINDED [Example #1]
Criminal minded, you've been blinded
Looking for a shoe like mine, can't find it
Mine cost more
Yours cost less
Mine Footlocker
Yours Payless
Do your footsies, 1, 2, and three
And your hopsies, 1, 2, and three
And your bouncies, 1, 2, and three
And your walksies, 1, 2, and three
And your turnsies, 1, 2, and three
And your crisses, 1, 2, and three
- African American elementary school girls at Mills School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania chanted as a Double Dutch jump rope rhyme (collected in 1999 by Anna R. Beresin, included in Recess Battles: Playing Fighting, And Storytelling (This book was first published in 2010)
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CRIMINAL MINDED [Example #2]
Criminal minded, you've been blinded
Looking for a shoe like mine, can't find it
Mine cost more
Yours cost less
Mine Footlocker
Yours Payless
So criminal minded
Foot, you got it
So criminal minded
Foot, you got it
So criminal minded
Hop, you got it
So criminal minded
Walk, you got it
So criminal minded
Criss, you got it
-- African American elementary school girls at Mills School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania chanted as a Double Dutch jump rope rhyme (collected in 20041999 by Anna R. Beresin, included in Recess Battles: Playing Fighting, And Storytelling (This book was first published in 2010)
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Example #3
The "Criminal Minded" rhyme from 1999 mentioned in Kyra D.Gaunt's 2011 book
is given in the chapter: “Double Forces Has Got The Beat: Reclaiming Girl’s Music In The Sport of Double- Dutch" by Kyra D. Gaunt in the 2011 book The Girls' History and Culture Reader: The Twentieth Century , edited by Miriam Forman-Brunell and Leslie Paris (University of Illinois Press).
Here's that quote:
"Around 1999, I watched two sisters (one nine and the other thirteen, assisted by a neighborhood friend) perform a series of double-dutch game songs in their home in Philly. They had rolled back the living room carpet with their mother’s permission, despite their father’s rule: no jumping rope in the house.
As they performed their repertoire, Candance, the older sister, kept complaining to her younger sister Bridgette, that she really didn’t really learn her “turnsies” right. Interestingly, the rap “Criminal Minded” by urban poet and recording artists KRS-One was the basis of their play. The opening lyrics of that rap song were more or less the same lyrics that opened their game song:
Criminal minded, you’ve been blinded
Lookin for a style like mine, you can’t find it."
-snip-
Notice that this rhyme was chanted by two African American girls from Philly (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania".
-snip-
I quoted this excerpt in the 2017 pancocojams post "Two Book Excerpts That Provide Examples Of Children's Playground Rhymes That Include Product Brand Names" https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/08/commercialized-childrens-jump-rope-hand.html
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Example #4
YouTube video clip of "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch rhyme
. May 16, 2016 [video about the Philly Girls Jump organization] [...]
Video by Miguel Martinez
Audio by Avory Brookins -snip- The fragment of the "Criminal Minded" Double Dutch rhyme is found at around 1:43 to 1:56 in this video. This fragment is the same as the beginning of the examples that Anna R. Beresin documented in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1999 and 2004 at the same elementary school (Example #1 and Example #2 that are given above.)
"Criminal minced you been blinded
Lookin for a shoe like mine
and you can’t find it.
Mine cost more
Your’s cost less
Mine Footlocker
And yours Payless"
****
Example #5
Here's a comment from that video's discussion thread:
[comment]
@tdm3301, 2018
"Kudos to these ladies! We did criminal minded
when I was a kid in the mid to late 80's. Jumping rope would kill hours for us
kids. We had no idea we were getting in so much cardio. I hope more kids jump
on the bandwagon (no pun intended).🙂
**** Example #6 [Pancocojams Editor's Note: This jump rope rhyme is included in a list of rhymes that the commenter remembered from her childhood (no demographic information was given and no words to any of these rhymes were given.]
"Who remembers some of the double dutch rhymes? I learned how to jump around 97-98. It was so much fun. It's a shame you don't see many kids outside jumping rope anymore.
Some of the rhymes I remember:
Nike Nike who can do the nike, foot to the N-I-K-E...
R-E-E-B-O-K do your footsies the reebok way..
Challenge Challenge,1, 2, 3..
Criminal minded you've been blinded..
Pac man"
-sin86, August 12, 2020,
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Example #7
"Do y'all remember criminal minded"
-@latoshacollier7905, 2024, [comment] "DOUBLE DUTCH LIFE AT 49💪💪💪💪💪💪#OVER45
#doubledutch #philly #nike nike" https://youtube.com/shorts/GtMXeHUfkKA?si=Ki-ZOaMwWgImzmiu, published by @antoinettemarshall1615
**** This concludes Part III of this three part pancocojams series.
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