Released May 7, 1993 Recorded 1992 Length 3:56 | Format 12-inch single Genre Miami bass Label Life Records | |
"Whoomp! (There It Is)" is a number two Billboard Hot 100 single by the Miami bass group Tag Team. The song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1993. The song's critical reception has been mixed, appearing on both best and worst of all time lists. It is frequently parodied and has also become a staple of sporting events. Tag Team tried to prolong the success of "Whoomp! (There It Is)" with Addams Family and Disney versions, but none of those cracked the Top 40 and the group is considered a one-hit wonder.
Contents
Background
The song sampled a beginning synthesizer line from the 1980 Italo disco hit "I'm Ready" by Kano. The chorus is almost the same as the song "Whoot, There It Is" released by fellow Miami-based 95 South a month earlier, but the verse lyrics are much different. Both songs charted on the Billboard chart at the same time, but "Whoot, There It Is" peaked at #11 and "Whoomp! (There It Is)" peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Members of 95 South claim that Tag Team copied their work. "Whoot, There It Is" was released in March 1993, two months before "Whoomp! (There It Is)". Both singles were recorded in Atlanta. Tag Team member DC claimed that the phrase, 'Whoomp! There It Is' was coined by strippers from Florida working in Atlanta. DC was a DJ at an adult entertainment establishment in Georgia during that time. 95 South, however, were Miami based, which led most to believe DC was either simply lying and knew about the track, or he was actually unaware that the phrase the Florida strippers were repeating in Georgia was from an already released track. It seemed highly unlikely, if not impossible, for a professional DJ to be unaware of such a widely played track, especially considering that the Florida strippers he DJed for requested their own music to dance to.
Critical reception
"Whoomp! (There It Is)" was rated #97 in VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders. The song listed at #58 on "Billboard's Greatest Songs of all time".
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.
Barack Obama rumor
In 2010, the song became the subject of media scrutiny when Gawker posted an item asking whether United States President Barack Obama appears as an extra in the song's video. A similarity was noted between Obama, who was 31 and working as an attorney in Chicago at the time the video was shot, and an Atlanta-hired extra who appears at the 1:01 mark in the clip. However, no one involved in the making of the video was able to remember the extra's name. The Gawker writer came to the conclusion that it was not Obama. Politifact rated the claim that Obama was in the video as "Pants on Fire". In an interview with Gawker, members DC The Brain Supreme and Steve Roll'N of the now-defunct Tag Team confirmed that the extra's true identity was rapper 'LA Sno' Brown, a member of the Miami bass duo Duice.
Popular culture
The song has been featured in many facets of popular culture since its release. A commercial for chocolate potato chip brand Swoops ran commercials parodying the song, changing the lyric to "Swoops! There it is". A 2011 commercial for Luvs diapers features animated infants dancing to "Poop! There it is". Additionally, a 2011 AT&T commercial for the iPhone 4 features two men on a phone call debating the year of the song's release; this article's infobox is shown on the phone's screen toward the end of the commercial. A 2014 Google commercial for Android, part of the “Be together. Not the same” campaign, features animated characters based on the Android robot on a recreational vehicle, dancing to the song. It was featured in a 2016 commercial to promote Gain Detergent.
The song was used extensively during the Philadelphia Phillies run to the 1993 World Series.
The song was also featured in a 2015 Pepsi commercial "The 92nd Floor" to promote the relaunch of Crystal Pepsi, whose original run was from 1992-93.
The song has also been featured in several films, such as Shark Tale, Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Rio and Elf. DC did not realize that Elf had used the song until he saw the scene, where Will Ferrell dances to the song on top of a mailroom table, until he saw it in theaters.
Derek Dorsett of the Vancouver Canucks used the song as his goal song for the 2015-16 NHL season, as the organization had begun to use specific goal songs for each of its main-stay players.
Alternate, cover and remix versions
Chart performance
The hit song spent one week at #1 on the US R&B chart in 1993. On the Hot 100 chart dated July 10th, "Whoomp! (There It Is)" reached a new peak at number three, 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 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, was the second top song of 1993, behind Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You". It has sold over 3.5 million copies in the United States.