Whoomp! (There It Is)

"Whoomp! (There It Is)" is a song by DC "The Brain Supreme" Glenn and Steve "Rolln" Gibson of the 1990s rap duo Tag Team.[1] The song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot R&B charts in 1993 and #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts that same year.[2][3] "Whoomp!" reached multi-platinum status and broke records for the number of consecutive weeks in the top 10.[4] Though Tag Team is considered a one-hit wonder, as their subsequent singles did not find the same success, "Whoomp!" has remained a pop culture staple with multiple placements in film, television, and advertisements. The song has also endured as a mainstay at sporting and arena events.[1]

Not to be confused with Whoot, There It Is.
"Whoomp! (There It Is)"
Single by Tag Team
from the album Whoomp! (There It Is)
ReleasedMay 7, 1993
Recorded1992
GenreMiami bass
Length3:56
LabelLife Records
Songwriter(s)Stephen Gibson and Cecil Glenn (Tag Team)
Producer(s)Tag Team
Tag Team singles chronology
"Whoomp! (There It Is)"
(1993)		 "U Go Girl"
(1995)

Background

Tag Team recorded "Whoomp! (There It Is)" in August 1992. At that time, Glenn was working as the main DJ at Magic City, an Atlanta gentlemen's club that would later become recognized as a hub of Atlanta hip-hop and rap music.[5][6] The song sampled a synthesizer line from the 1980 Italo disco hit "I'm Ready" by Kano. Glenn played the track in the club on the same day it was mixed and received a positive reaction from the audience. In the following months, people requested the song so often that it became clear the song had the potential to become a hit. The single was shopped to and rejected by multiple record labels because executives were unfamiliar with Southern Bass and were unsure if the sound would sell well around the country. Glenn instead borrowed $2,500 from his parents to press eight hundred records. The singles quickly sold out in Atlanta on word of mouth alone.[5]

A representative from Mercury Records suggested that the best person to promote music from the Southern Bass genre was Stax Records mogul Al Bell. Glenn reached out to Bell, who agreed to sign Tag Team without even hearing the song. Bell reportedly told Glenn, "I don’t need to hear the record. I hear it in your spirit."[7]

A similar song, "Whoot, There It Is", was released by the Miami-based group 95 South a month prior to Tag Team's "Whoomp!"[8] Both groups' record companies maintained that the similarities were a coincidence, as the phrase, "Whoomp (or whoot), there it is", was a common expression used by dancers in Atlanta and Miami nightclubs that members from both groups frequented.[8] Arsenio Hall hosted both groups on his show to perform their versions of the songs and let viewers vote on their favorite by calling a 900 number to donate money to the relief effort for the 1993 Midwest Floods.[9]

The phrase "Whoomp! There it is!" has come to mean something similar to "Look at that!" It is intended to encourage "positive partying".[10][8][6] Tag Team has explained that the phrase is refers to "anything that one agrees with on a positive level".[8]

Reception

The song was praised by critics for its positive and uplifting tone.[11] Within months of its release, "Whoomp!" reached the top position on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart and Hot 100 Single Sales chart.[12][13] The record held the #2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven consecutive weeks and reached platinum status. In February 1994, it received its fourth platinum certification.[14]

"Whoomp! (There It Is)" was rated #97 in VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders. The song is listed at #58 on "Billboard's Greatest Songs of all time".[15] "Whoomp" has been called "da bomb party song" of the 1990s by Atlanta Magazine and "among the country's most commercially successful singles of all time."[6][16][17]

Music video

The video for the song features a large outdoor party. It was filmed at an Atlanta fairground. Extras were recruited by word-of-mouth and also by an announcement on a local radio station. More than a thousand extras showed up for the shoot.[18]

"Whoomp! (There It Is)" has been played or referenced in dozens of films, TV shows, and advertisements. Some of the song's most notable placements in film include Elf, D2: The Mighty Ducks, Rio, and Addams Family Values.[19] The song is also referenced in episode titles of Martin,The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and The Secret Life of the American Teenager.[20][21] It is also widely considered one of the top songs of all time for sporting events and has been included among MLB's top walk-up songs and the NBA's biggest arena anthems.[22][23][24]

Addams Family Remix

Within a year of the release of "Whoomp! (There It Is)", Tag Team remixed the backing music with a version of the theme song from the original Addams Family television series to create the song "Addams Family (Whoomp!)" for the film Addams Family Values. Actors Christina Ricci and Jimmy Workman reprised their film roles as Wednesday Addams and Pugsley Addams (respectively) for the song's music video. This version appears as the closing track on the soundtrack album Addams Family Values: Music from the Motion Picture. "Addams Family (Whoomp!)" won the 1994 Razzie Award (Worst Original Song) for its writers (Ralph Sall, Stephen Gibson and Cecil Glenn).[25] Addams Family Values was also nominated for an Academy Award the same year, making it one of just a handful of films to be nominated for both a Razzie and an Oscar.[26]

GEICO Spot

In December 2020, GEICO Insurance used a parody of “Whoomp! (There It Is)” and the members of Tag Team as the punchline to a joke in a commercial. It featured Glenn and Gibson replacing the lyrics of the song with lyrics about ice cream. While the song had been used in advertisements previously, this was the first time the members appeared in a spot.[27]

Charts

The hit song spent one week at #1 on the US R&B chart in 1993. On the Hot 100 chart dated July 10, "Whoomp! (There It Is)" reached a new peak at number two, sandwiched between Janet Jackson's "That's the Way Love Goes" above and UB40's "Can't Help Falling in Love" beneath - all three songs ended up next to each other at the Year-End edition of the chart, occupying exactly the same positions, albeit in slightly different orders. It eventually spent seven weeks at #2 in September through October, 1993[28] on the Billboard Hot 100, but was kept out of the top slot by "Can't Help Falling in Love" and Mariah Carey's "Dreamlover". The single is certified 4× Platinum in the US for shipments of over 4,000,000 copies and, despite never reaching number one on the pop chart, the song spent 24 non-consecutive weeks in the top ten becoming the longest running top ten song of all time until Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart” spent a week longer in 1997. It was ranked the second biggest song of 1993, behind Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You". It has sold over 3.5 million copies in the United States.[4]

Weekly charts

See also

References
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  2. Billboard - Google Books. 1995-09-04. Retrieved 2011-03-29.
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  4. Sandiford-Waller, Theda (November 9, 1996). "Hot 100 Singles Spotlight". Billboard. BPI Communications Inc. 108 (45): 83. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved February 26, 2015.
  5. Hunt, Dennis (July 21, 1993). "A Rap Hit Without Violence, Sex or Profanity? There It Is : Pop music: Tag Team breaks the rules with the No. 3 single 'Whoomp!' The duo's first album is released this week". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2019-06-04.
  6. "Tag Team". Colorado Music Experience. Retrieved 2019-06-05.
  7. Haring, Bruce (September 21, 1993). "A Soul Man From the '60s Is Back in the Groove Again : Pop music: With the success of Bellmark Records' young rappers, founder Al Bell returns to the record biz big leagues". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2019-06-05.
  8. Due, Tananarive (September 8, 1993). "Whoomp of Whoot, There It Is- Both Are Equally Cool". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2019-06-07.
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