Ubangi Stomp by Alice Cooper

Album: Lace and Whiskey (1977)

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The book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a piece of post colonial literature which talks of the customs in Africa from the African perspective. According to the book, the "Ubangi" Cooper refers to in the song is a superstition The Ibo people had concerning babies. If babies are still born or deformed at birth, they are mutilated with farm tools or by stomping on them. This is done to deter the bad sprits which dwelled in their children from returning in their next child. >>>
Suggestion credit:
Tom - Cincinnati, OH

Comments: 5

Bill from UsAnd Bob, Edna Turnblad was in Hairspray, and she was talking about those white kids loving to dance to that negro music that came from Africa! Geez, and thus alluding to the original song, not Cooper's version.
Bill from UsThat song fact erh, questionable... I believe most of us know that Warren Smith was simple rockin out to an idea that the people of Africa were kickin up the dance stance with their drums long before the rest of the world put it on vinyl! Now if Alice Cooper was singin about stomping on dead babies, well uh... maybe there is something there!
David from Inverness, United KingdomYep just a tune If you listen to Warren Smith's great Sun Rockabilly beat he "rocks thro Africa" and meets a chief who talks with an accent of a red indian straight from a 50s Western Movie .... crazy
Bob from Washington, DcJust a curiosity, but Edna Turnblad (Divine) in the John Waters film, Polyester, makes a disparaging remark about her daughter, Tracy Turnblad, doing the "Ubangi Stomp." The film was released in 1988, so may be a reference by John Waters to the Alice Cooper song.
Dave from Portsmouth, NhWell for one thing, Alice isn't referring to anything. The song is an old rockabilly tune written by Charles Underwood, and first recorded by Warren Smith in 1956. To be quite honest, I don't believe for a minute that Underwood is referring to the Ibo practices cited, either. There is a Ubangi river in Africa, and there was once a territory called Ubangi-Shari. It just made for a real gone tune, daddy-o.

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