"Whoomp! " is a song by the Miami bass group Tag Team. The song reached #2 on the BillboardHot 100 charts in 1993. The song has since become a staple of sporting events. Tag Team tried to prolong the success of "Whoomp! " with Addams Family and Disney versions, but none of those cracked the Top 40 and the group is considered a one-hit wonder.
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 very different. Both songs charted on the Billboard chart at the same time, but "Whoot, There It Is" peaked at #11 and "Whoomp! " 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! ". 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! " 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.
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! " 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 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.
