The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #123896   Message #2733472
Posted By: Azizi
28-Sep-09 - 04:23 PM
Thread Name: Songs & Rhymes About Knocking
Subject: RE: Songs & Rhymes About Knocking
Here's a corrected copy of that cheer:

YOU AIN'T GOIN NO WHERE

Entire
Group: You ain't goin no where.
no where.
You ain't goin no where.
You ain't goin no where.
no where.
You ain't goin no where.
Hey Shadaya!
Shadaya (Soloist #1): What?
Group: Introduce yourself.
Shadaya: Too shy.
Group: Introduce yourself.
Shadaya: I'll try.
My name is Shadaya.      
I cheer for Garfield.
My sign is Libra.
And when I'm up
Group: When she's up
Shadaya: I'm hot stuff.
Group: She's hot stuff.
Shadaya: And when I'm down
Group: And when she's down
Shadaya: Don't mess around.
Group: Don't mess around.
Shadaya: Don't make me scream
'cause you will be _knocked _out.

-Shadaya {African American girl, 10 years old;
Pittsburgh, PA; 2002; collected by Azizi Powell, 2002

[Continue the chant from the beginning with the next soloist who substitutes her name and her astrological sun sign. This continues until every member in the group as had one turn as the soloist.]

The - indicates a beat before the next word is chanted.

**

I observed this same cheer performed by African American girls (ages 8-1i years old) in the same Pittsburgh neighborhood of Garfield. Some cheers from 2002 don't appear to be known by those girls. And a lot of cheers from that neighborhood which I observed in the 1980s appear to have been forgotten.

What is amazing to me is how many cheers (from different decades) appear to be known by African American females throughout the United States (as per examples that have been submitted to my website and examples that I have gleaned from other blogs). For the record, "Introduce yourself" (but not this "You ain't goin nowhere version") is one of the foot stomping cheers that appears to be known in African American communities throughout various states in the USA.