"Whoomp! There It Is": DC Glenn of Tag Team

by Corey O'Flanagan

DC Glenn (DC the Brain Supreme, real name Cecil Glenn) is one half of the hip-hop group Tag Team, who wrote and recorded the smash hit "Whoomp! There It Is," revived in a brilliant Geico commercial ("Scoop! There It Is") that exploded on social media.

You may not know that there was a competing song called "Whoot, There It Is" that was released first in 1993. In this episode, DC talks about that rivalry, explains what inspired "Whoomp!" and takes us behind the scenes of the Geico commercial.


How Tag Team Formed

DC went to Manual High School in Denver with Steve Rolln (Steve Gibson), his Tag Team partner. When they graduated in 1984, DC took classes at California State University, Sacramento, and Steve went to the Art Institute of Atlanta. They teamed up again in 1989.

When I visited Atlanta, Steve took me to an adult entertainment club called Magic City. I had $500 in my pocket and within a half hour that money was gone. It was lost to that twinkle and sparkle. I knew right then and there that I was moving to Atlanta.

I packed up, moved down here, and got a job at CNN. I went back to Magic City and the DJ sucked. I was like, "I could do this," because I'd been DJing and I'd made a name for myself on the West Coast. I asked for a job - I figured I could work at Magic City in the summer and at CNN in the fall. They didn't need a DJ, but they needed a cook, so I was like, "All right, I can cook a couple of orders of chicken wings and a make a salad."

One day, the DJ was like, "Hey man, can you DJ for me while I go run some errands?" This was in the beginning of hip-hop, early '90s, and there were rules. You never let anybody on your turntables, and you gotta control the mic. He gave it to me and I started DJing, seeing girls look back at me like, Who is this? I was talking with great articulation and energy. They'd never heard anything like that and they made more money than they ever made on a day shift.

They had a meeting every month with all the dancers, and the management asked about the DJs. One girl named Indigo, she was the lead dancer, she got up, pointed to me, and said, "We want him!" I got the job and I never looked back.

I started breaking records, because back then, every record company had reps, and they'd each have a region. They would take the product to radio or record pools in that area, and all the reps will come and see me at the club and drop off a stack of records.

Shortly after I started working there, one of the reps at Epic Records brought me a Candyman record ["Knockin' Boots"]. He's like, "Hey man, I really like this record. Just play it for me a couple times and let me know what you think." I put it on, and he got to watch one of the girls dance to it. She started dancing to it and all the men came, and then the whole club was partying to the record.

He went back and made his reports and everybody said, "That ain't doing nothing in the Southeast because this is a West Coast record." That's how narrow record company executives used to think. All they were thinking was radio, but it wasn't about it being organic, and I had a way to make it organic and break the record in Atlanta. He told other reps, and everybody started bringing me their records. It was all major labels.

In Atlanta, they didn't have any rap stations. Well, how are you going to get rap music? So I was getting records from the record labels and from all over. I would get all the white-label stuff.1 I had D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, MC Shan... all kinds of old-school hip-hop that was still on white labels because they hadn't even got deals. They just pressed up 500 and put them in the record stores.

So I got all the stuff down from LA: Dr. Dre, Egyptian Lover, all that stuff. I got the stuff from Luke [Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew] in Florida - it was stuff you couldn't get at Tower Records.

There used to be three of us: it was Otis Preston (Otis P.), me and Steve, and I was the DJ. When I got to college, my first year, I got this rhyme book out of the library, and that's what started my writing career, because I'd be in class and I'd just write.

Freshman year I met a guy named Johnny Z - John Zunino - we stayed in the same dorm. He made a record with N2Deep called "Back To The Hotel," but we met years before that. I taught him how to rap, how to DJ, and he taught me about heavy metal. He had a Tascam 4-track, and my partner had an 808 that I borrowed. I made like 10 beats on the 4-track, then I just started laying junk on top of them: scratches, little bitty kids' flute, pots and pans... whatever. Any type of noise that I could make fit into a song. And I had so many lyrics that I started rapping over these songs. When I had 10 complete songs I sent it to Steve, and he thought I was in devil worship because sometimes I'd use Halloween screams and stuff like that. I used sound-effects records, which weren't widely accepted outside of Michael Jackson, "Thriller." Steve got intrigued and he went and bought a 4-track and a drum machine. So now we didn't have to go to the studio and pay for that time - we could make music at home. So we'd send tapes back and forth in the mail, and we got better at it. This was like '86, '87, '88.


The "Whoomp! There It Is" Story

I was getting all these records and it was exposing me to every type of hip-hop and R&B, so I was becoming a seriously well-rounded DJ. Fast forward a couple years and I'm playing go-go, I'm playing reggae, and I know where to get all the records. But being in the Southeast, I was in the land of booty shake. Steve and I had been making music, but it was hip-hop inspired by different forms on the East and the West Coasts. I came to the realization that we needed to make an uptempo record. Not a bass record, but uptempo. I told Steve, "Think 'Planet Rock' and Egyptian Lover." Those were our favorite records. And we already knew we were going to use the Kano sample.2 He put together the beat, and I thought of "Whoomp! There It Is" because it was a party saying in the club, and it fit perfect.

I had a stack of rhyme books, so I started going through the rhyme books trying to match the beat with the lyrics. That's how I used to do it back then. I used to love to write. I had rhyme books and dictionaries and I'd really be university with it because that's how I started - I did it in class.

"Whoomp! There It Is" was just another song of the hundreds we had done - there was no master scheme. We recorded it in August '92. I went to work that night, got set up, popped it in on cassette, and to this day, that is the biggest response on a record I have ever had, and I've been DJing for 34 years.

I would always play our records in the club, because if a girl dances to it, that means you got two plays a night if she goes on stage twice. And when the guys see the girls booty-shaking to it, they'd say, "I like that song, man!" Guys would come down from New York, see these girls dancing to these songs, and that was how I broke records.

I stopped playing "Whoomp! There It Is" after a month because we had other songs and they liked those too, but one of the girls was like, "How come you don't play 'Whoomp!' no more?" I said, "I'll play it for you baby," and I played it again. And again it got the same response, but Allan Cole, a rep for Columbia, happened to be in the club and he was like, "Man, what the hell is that? Give me that record!"

He went to New York and worked his butt off to try to get us a deal with Columbia, but by then I really knew I had something, so I started shopping. This is like January of '93. I called Al Bell, who used to own Stax Records. He had a new label called Bellmark and put out "Dazzey Duks" [by Duice], so he knew how to work a bass record. A week later, he hit me back. He's like, "Hey brother, how you doing?" I said, "You've got to hear this record. I've tested it at the biggest club in the country, and it's the biggest response I've ever gotten on a record."

He was like, "All right."

"What? You haven't even heard the record yet."

I'll never forget what he said. He said, "I don't have to hear the record, brother. I hear it in your spirit."

Those were the most beautiful words I ever heard. He said, "Let's agree to agree," and then I signed a messed-up record deal, gave my two weeks at Magic City, and in a month and a half, I was Platinum.

Here are some of the things that made it accelerate. Ed Lover is a good friend of mine. Everybody was a good friend of mine because I was in the #1 strip club in the country. I got to Atlanta when Bobby Brown, LA [Reid] and Babyface got to Atlanta. I got to Atlanta when Atlanta became Atlanta.

So Ed came down, and he's like, "What's that record? Give me that."

I gave him a cassette and he said, "I can't use no cassette. You gotta get me some vinyl. New York is going to go crazy when they hear this."

So I left Magic City, and I told Al Bell to get me vinyls as quickly as possible. Maybe two weeks after I left Magic City, I have vinyl and I give it to Ed Lover, who was down there for the weekend. That Monday, he and Dre play "Whoomp! There It Is" the whole show of Yo! MTV Raps.

After that, everybody was like, What the hell is that record? Michael Jordan and the Bulls won their third championship and I got 500,000 people in Grant Park celebrating to "Whoomp! There It Is." I got the whole city of Washington DC, trying to get this record because my first line is, "DC's in the house, jump, jump, rejoice." They think I'm from DC and they want this record. We go to LA to do our first radio promos, and our first radio promo is with Tupac. Pac's mom used to live down here and we used to hang out in a club on Campbellton Road called Obsession.


"Whoomp!" vs. "Whoot"

A Florida group called 95 South released a song called "Whoot, There It Is" in 1993 around the same time Tag Team released "Whoomp!" "Whoot" did pretty well, going to #11 on the Hot 100, but it was a lot more explicit, unlike the family friendly (and thus, more marketable) offering from Tag Team. It was rumored that Tag Team got a hold of "Whoot" and repackaged it. DC addresses that here.

Saturday night [February 27, 2021] was the first time I talked to them in 25 years. We were on Clubhouse with 95 South. Back in the day, they accused us of taking their record, but I'm like, "Where did y'all get the record?" If anybody should be mad about it, it should be Disco Rick, because Disco Rick made a record a year before that had that chant because it was a party saying.

So it was just a coincidence, and they were like, "You guys stole our record."

But I've got paperwork. We copyrighted in January, but then the story they said was I was DJing at the club, they brought me a test press, I played it, and then I called Steve and stole it. I wasn't even working at Magic City at that time.

So they've been thinking that for these 20-something years, but then they come to find out all this information, like there was another group in Atlanta, A-town Players, that had a "Whoomp! There It Is." They all had it in 1993, but we did ours in '92 that summer, and I've got proof of all this.

I never really dealt with it because if I'm running the marathon and in the lead, why am I worried about who's in second place? I'm looking at the numbers, and we're #1. That's my goal. I can only concentrate on what I do.

Even when we did Arsenio with them,3 we all cordial. We've never had beef, but everybody else has made it like we had beef. One of their members did a little video, like a documentary about how we did it, and I was just like, That's not right. I hate that they're living with that false narrative in their heart. But I'm on this Clubhouse with them and we're talking and laughing and they're congratulating us. And they said, "Hey man, we just had to embrace it." We're all making money, but it's 28 years later, and we got a Geico commercial.

Every chance I get I try to help them. They do NBA halftime shows now because of us. I put in a word and help them. There is no animosity with me.

"Whoomp! There It Is" took off in the summer of 1993 and was still riding high in 1994. Tag Team capitalized with more "Whoomp!"-related material, like "Addams Family (Whoomp!)" for the movie Addams Family Values. In 1995 they released a second album, but by then the party was over. And remember that Kano sample they used? That was never cleared and their record company got sued, which cut the cash flow quickly.

DC went back to DJing and started doing voiceovers; Steve Rolln got busted in 1998 transporting 600 pounds of marijuana, which landed him in jail for a few years (he got out in 2001). But then "Whoomp!" caught its first wave of nostalgia, appearing in Elf (2003), Shark Tale (2004), and Mr. 3000 (2004). That "messed-up record deal" they signed came back to bite them: Steve and DC get only the writers' royalties for the song because they don't own the master license.

Throughout the '00s, Tag Team pretty much vanished, but a burst of interest in 2010 when Obama was rumored to be in the "Whoomp!" video impelled DC to up his marketing game.

Obama In The "Whoomp!" Video?

Everybody thought Barack Obama was in our video. Remember that? Gawker wrote an article that Obama was in our video and he used to be a gangster rapper. They just made up this narrative. I get a call at the club, it was a reporter from The New York Times. They thought it was going to be a big story and wanted the first interview. The reason she called me at the club was because nobody could find me, because we didn't have a website, we didn't have anything.

So I vowed that that will never happen again, and that's when my PR journey started and my website-building journey started. I was tired of missing opportunities.

Four years ago if you typed in "tag team" in a search it was all wrestling, now it's all Tag Team. I also learned how Wikipedia works, so now I can edit all the Wikipedia.

I joined the International Entertainment Buyers Association. I went to their convention and gave out business cards. I told them I'm looking for shows, and that we're a clean rap group. That was the pitch, because if you're doing '90s nostalgia shows, you've got to be clean, and we don't cuss. So now we're getting shows at Hard Rock Cafes, casinos, state fairs.

Geico Commercial

I prepared for a month for that commercial. You would think it would be simple: You just show up and do what the director says. But I'm a trained actor, so I started coming up with scenarios. My father used to make ice cream. He had this old-school ice-cream maker where you'd pour the ice in the cylinder and my brother and I would crank it - my brother cranks five minutes, I crank five minutes. In 20 minutes, we got ice cream. That's the essence of that Geico commercial.

It was going to be "Soup! There It Is" at first, then they called and said, "We're doing 'Scoop! There It Is' - ice cream."

I went to work on scenarios. I wanted it to be so when children see this commercial, they go to their parents and say, "I want to party like that!" I'm thinking kids because two big, middle-aged dudes talking about ice cream? Come on now. I know how those Geico commercials work. It's the asinine little bit, but in context.

I wanted a spinning scoop and tried to find a fabricator to make it. We had a production meeting the night before at our dress rehearsal, and I said, "I want a spinning scoop but I can't get it made." They were like, "It'll be here tomorrow."

Then I wanted to do the LeBron James thing where he goes to the scorer's table and he does the chalk, but with sprinkles. And then there's a dance we do down South called The Yeet that everybody who loves bass does. So that's my ode to the Southeast and the culture of our music. Everyone who sees me dance will know that's what it is. So I co-signed that whole Southeast thing.

I had like eight scenarios, and we shot all of them. The spinning scoop and the sprinkles at the end made the commercial. Then the other actors did their thing. Me and Steve, we always bring that energy to the stage, and it feeds through people.

All this hit at a time when the world needed it. It hit on Christmas when there was a certain depression that creeped in and we needed a light.

Our Geico commercial is #1 all time for artists. More than Little Richard, Ratt, Boyz II Men, Salt-N-Pepa, Ice-T... we surpassed them in a month.


Filling An Hour

I had to diversify because at these shows, we have to do an hour, and we can't just go out there and do songs that nobody knows. So I thought, What am I first and foremost? A DJ. So the first half hour I DJ and play '90s cuts. We still have to do a show, so I started taking comedy classes to write entertaining segues between songs that people didn't know. When they hear the song, they're having a good time because they've been laughing a minute before. And all our songs have good beats - we got the songs, they just don't know them.

I'll do this all the way through without playing "Whoomp! There It Is." I'm like, "Thank you everybody, we're out of here!" Then we come back for an encore and kill them with "Whoomp! There It Is."

May 17, 2021

Subscribe to the Songfacts podcast, part of the Pantheon Network

More at tagteambackagain.com

Here's our interview with Cozmo D of Newcleus

Footnotes:

  • 1] White-label records were pressings made before a song was released that didn't have printed labels. (back)
  • 2] The "Whoomp!" bassline is sampled from "I'm Ready," a 1980 dance song by the Italian group Kano. (back)
  • 3] Arsenio Hall staged a battle on his show, which 95 South won. (back)

More Songfacts Podcast

Comments: 1

  • Ocie from HoustonI will always be HAPPY FOR YOU!
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Michael Schenker

Michael SchenkerSongwriter Interviews

The Scorpions and UFO guitarist is also a very prolific songwriter - he explains how he writes with his various groups, and why he was so keen to get out of Germany and into England.

Hardy

HardySongwriter Interviews

The country hitmaker talks about his debut album, A Rock, and how a nursery rhyme inspired his hit single "One Beer."

Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne

Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of WayneSongwriter Interviews

The guy who brought us "Stacy's Mom" also wrote the Jane Lynch Emmy song and Stephen Colbert's Christmas songs.

Shawn Mullins

Shawn MullinsSongwriter Interviews

"Lullaby" singer Shawn Mullins on "Beautiful Wreck," beating the Devil, and his writing credit on the Zac Brown Band song "Toes."

Dave Edmunds

Dave EdmundsSongwriter Interviews

A renowned guitarist and rock revivalist, Dave took "I Hear You Knocking" to the top of the UK charts and was the first to record Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk."

Supertramp founder Roger Hodgson

Supertramp founder Roger HodgsonSongwriter Interviews

Roger tells the stories behind some of his biggest hits, including "Give a Little Bit," "Take the Long Way Home" and "The Logical Song."