ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - DC Glenn, one half of the group Tag Team, known for their hit song “Whomp! (There It Is).” Tag Team premiered the song almost 30 years ago at Magic City, an Atlanta strip club.
The song was so popular in the nineties, even though it was a one-hit wonder, Geico made an ad commercial in 2021 as “Scoop! (There It Is). The group Tag Team was formed in Denver, Colorado, when friends Steve “Rollin” Gibson and Cecil “DC the Brain Supreme” and another student were in high school. After Steve moved to Atlanta in 1988 insisted that DC Glenn do the same.
“So Steve had moved down here in ‘88 to go to the Art Institute of Atlanta. And it was Christmas time. So he said man you need to come down here, man. Atlanta’s the bomb. I was like, all right, so I came down Christmas, and I don’t even get to..we didn’t even get back to the apartment. It took me straight to Magic City.”
Aside from his experience in the strip club and spending $500 in half an hour, he was sold on moving to Atlanta after seeing so many Black folks living in harmony.
“And I knew then that I was coming to Atlanta. We went to Sensations and Guy was performing New Year’s Eve, and my last semester, Sacramento State, packed up, drove all the way cross country, came to Atlanta because I had never seen black folks living in harmony like that. And I got here at the beginning when L.A. got here, Babyface got here, Bobby Brown, everybody was coming Too Short, came the year after that.”
His first weekend in Atlanta, he went to Magic City. After watching the DJ perform, he thought he could DJ.
“I went to Maj and I was like, Hey Man..need a DJ. He said Naw, come see me Monday.”
He wasn’t offered the DJ spot at first but as a cook and a backup. His first night working the DJ had to run some errands and ask him to DJ.
“That was a mistake”, he said.
That night set the tone for the rest of his career.
“By the end of the day, it was a party. Everybody had money and we had our meeting. Everybody knows that on Sundays, first Sunday of the month or whatever, we have a Magic City meeting and I’ll never forget it. Indigo got up and was like Magic, we want him. Magic looking like aw right. And I was the head DJ”.
Dc Glenn had a very close relationship with his parents. He bragged to his parents about the money he was making, how much smarter he was than everybody else and all the things he was doing in Atlanta. They weren’t impressed with him working at a strip club after attending college.
“He looked at me as a son, of course, you’re smarter than everybody because you in a den with fools.”
“I never forgot that because, you know, I was acting like.. I wasn’t acting like I was a superior, but I was feeling myself right. And he knocked me back down was like, you think you’re doing something but you’re not doing nothing. And I took it not for what, you know, as an insult. I took it as a lesson, like, okay, slow your roll.”
From that moment he knew he had to turn his career change into something.
In 1992, the hit song “Whomp! (There It Is) was created.
“So we put the beat together and use the sample from Kano “already.” And I wrote my lyrics. He wrote his lyrics, and it was on a Thursday night. I’ll never forget it. In 1992 summer it was hot and we was in the studio all day and I had to go to work that night. And once I got set up at work, I popped Whoomp There it is into the cassette.”
After 30 years still the biggest response on any record he has ever made. Whoomp, there it is, did well in the clubs but no record company would pick it up.
After Lisa McCall suggested he call Al Bell, the owner of Stax record label, one of the three major labels back then. There was also Motown and Philly International. Al Bell was responsible for the hit song Daisy Dukes the prior year. He called Al Bell and he immediately made him an offer.
“Look, man, I got a hit record. I’m in the hottest club in the country. I’ve tested it. Everybody loves it. You need to sign us. And I’ll never forget these words. He was like, Okay. It’s like, No, don’t play me. You ain’t heard the record.” “He’s like, Brother, I don’t have to hear a record. I hear it in your spirit.”
They agreed on a deal, Tag Team signed a “messed up record contract”, and a month and a half later they went platinum.
“And some of the history isn’t pretty…the music business as the school of hard knocks, when we return”, he said.
Watch more of Monica Pearson One on One latest shows below:
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Monica Pearson One on One with DC Glenn -- Part 2
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Monica Pearson One on One with Steak Shapiro -- Part 2
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