Part I: Revisiting 90’s Hit, “Whoomp (There It Is) With Tag Team Member, DC The Brain Supreme

Tag Team released, “Whoomp (There It Is)” in 1993, group member, DC The Brain Supreme opens up about the timeless hit!

Tag Team’s, Whoomp (There It Is) reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1993. It also registered at #58 on “Billboard’s Greatest Songs of All-Time!” Along with those accolades, the song has been featured in several movies, used by several professional sports teams, in commercials and performed all over the world by the group; even in 2020, Tag Team stays relatively busy traveling to perform the hit that they created more than 25-years ago. It’s one of the all-time great party anthems. DC The Brain Supreme and Steve Rolln provided the world with a song that you could dance to, get amped up to or ride out with. With a catchy hook and southern bass beat, the duo added on-point lyrics and a hype video to match.

I caught up with, DC The Brain Supreme. He talks about his journey into music, creating the classic hit and much more!

What’s good, man? Good to have you on the horn. How are you?

DC The Brain Supreme: Hey man, just trying to maneuver around this virus out there. It ain’t really about the virus, it’s about the money it’s fucking up, you know what I’m saying. That shit fucking up money. People don’t realize it yet, but they will (laughing).

I didn’t even think of it from that angle, but you’re absolutely right. It’s brutal for entertainers right now.

DC The Brain Supreme: Yeah man! It’s like, I’m straight, but I was thinking like, what if I was still in the clubs or if I was still hustling. You in the clubs, clubs about to be done. People not trying to run out there. Stuff where you need a lot of people there to make money, you’re done. And that’s pretty much all the hustles they are. It’s gon be a lot of people short unless the shit just disappears. But the way this shit popping off, man. I don’t know if people trippin off of it spreading, but the way they are acting about this shit, nobody knows. It’s fucking people up. The uncertainty is what does it. people be fucked up on that shit because you need to know enough to know how to maneuver. They lying and shit. That just let’s you know how detrimental that lying shit is because… you can lie about everything else, but you lie about motherfucker’s health, motherfucker’s family, certain things you lie about got consequences. And that’s what’s poppin. When you lying about my money, it’s like you fucking with my money.

You mess with someone’s bread and it’s different.

DC The Brain Supreme: Now I gotta touch you (laughing). Other than that, man, I’m monitoring all the shows and just seeing if they are going to cancel them; all the shows we got lined up for the spring and the summer. If that happens, it’s all good, man. I’ll survive. I’m blessed, so I can’t really complain. I just gotta stay out the way.

You and Steve created a song in 1993 that is still relevant today. What a timeless song, “Whoomp (There It Is)” ended up being.

DC The Brain Supreme: See, that’s interesting you asked that because for me, back in the day when I made it, I worked at, Magic City the strip club in Atlanta. Before that record, I used to watch how artist used to act when they record hit. They just turned into assholes. And I remember being like, “I would never be like that.” Right! Pretty much since that record popped off, I’ve always been humble. We ain’t never rolled around with no security, we never acted like we were stars. We were always in the shadows. We always moved in silence, right. So, it doesn’t feel like the way you would think. We basically rolled in, did our show and rolled right out. Ain’t no after parties. People didn’t even know who we were at the time. I liked it like that because I get to live my life. I could roll anywhere I want and it’s not a problem. That’s why I used to love working in the club.

Everybody used to be like, “Man, why don’t you do security, why don’t you own a club?” I was like, “Hell nah, that’s going to limit my life.” I own a strip club, I’m making bread and shit, but then I got problems too. I gotta deal with street niggaz, I gotta deal with young niggaz and these hoes. You know what I mean. I can do it probably better than anybody, but all money ain’t good money. I like living my life, I’m a humble dude, I like what I like. If I wanna go and be a star, I get to do it at my choosing. As long as I’m singing that song, then I’m a star. I get to go be a kid again. And that’s really… when you get my age, I’m 53, when you get my age, that don’t do it for me no more. But in the end, I’m blessed because I get to go make bread off of one damn song. I can do an hour show on that one song.

How so?

DC The Brain Supreme: It’s basically the 90’s experience, right. If somebody’s coming to see, “Whoomp (There It Is)” and we’re headlining the show, you gotta be able to entertain them in ways that they didn’t think of. You can’t just go sing songs that nobody never heard before. But you can make it into an experience to where everything is aligned. You do a little of this, you do a little bit of that, you play with the crowd, you do a little comedy. You do all kind of things that entertain people. By the time you get to, “Whoomp” then it’s done. That’s a show. So, we’ve been able to do that. We do about 20-30 shows a year depending on the year, and it’s all good. There has been a lot of times when I’m like, “Okay, it’s dried up, is it over?” And then boom. It comes hard again.

What are the audiences like that still want to hear, “Whoomp?”

DC The Brain Supreme: The beauty of what we do, we’re not confined to anything. We have been booked on a country show, we’ve done ‘Trump Country’ shit. Shit, most of our shows be in ‘Trump Country.’ All the rural areas. In the middle of Wisconsin and down south. Anywhere that’s rural, they love us, man. That let’s you know how big the record is. And still is. We always can go do something. We have done carnivals and state fairs. One lady wanted to have us in the Ice Capades like for real. We do the halftime shows, NFL and NBA. And we get to do what no artist gets to do and it’s a blessing. It’d be nice if we had… the song was so big that we didn’t even really have a chance at having a catalog. That happens. But I’ll rather have that then have nothing, you know what I mean?

Most definitely!

DC The Brain Supreme: There are cats that have 4 or 5 albums that don’t get to work as much as we do. It works out, man. It works out. If you got 3 or 4 artists on a show and you’re like, “Damn, this show is still a little weak,” you can throw us on, we open, get everybody hype and we out. I like where I’m at and it works out good for us.

How did 2-non southern brothers come up with the perfect southern party song?

DC The Brain Supreme: This how we did it, dude, me and Steve started in the beginning, dude. The first record we used to hear, even before, “Rapper’s Delight,” and shit like that was Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk is basically bass music if you think about it. Kraftwerk evolved into soul sonic force. Ain’t nobody going to ever say, Planet Rock ain’t hip-hop because that was the whole genesis of the B-Boy era. B-Boy and B-Girl era. You listen to Planet Rock; Planet Rock was all the soul sonic force shit. Then the Planet Rock shit bleeds over to the west coast. Now you got Dr. Dre with “Surgery.” He would’ve never known that he was part of the genesis of hip-hop. You got, Egyptian Lover, Jamie Jupitor, all them groups like that. you got all that up-tempo shit in those areas. I mean you got the hip-hop too. Then it evolved into the slower stuff, “Rapper’s Delight,” “White Lines,” Debbie Harry stuff, all that shit. Different styles of hip-hop came into play. Then, once it started really getting street with, BDP [Boogie Down Productions], MC Shan and all the cats like that, I knew about it because I was a DJ when I went to college in Sacramento, California, but I used to order my records from New York and Washington, DC. Every Friday I would get an order of records.

Were you early on any of those records?

DC The Brain Supreme: People don’t even know this, Will Smith’s record; Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff, that record was a big street record before it even became commercial. Because everybody used to use samples from TV shows. The, “I Dream Of Jeanie” shit… when we were kids, that shit was poppin. Once they got their deal and hip-hop started evolving everybody was like, “Man, that’s popcorn shit,” because they used that. I still got that record. It’s a light blue and white label. That was one of the records I got. I got, “The Bridge” and all that shit. All the beats and the battles and shit and I knew what they were real time. And then what really changed the game, man was, “Peter Piper.” I was a freshman at Sac State. I did a party, I must’ve played, “Peter Piper” like 10-times. Motherfuckers were just geeked on that shit.

Fast forward, I’m DJing, hip-hop is evolving. I still get all the records from the east coast but I’m getting a lot of records from the west coast too. So, I get the best of all worlds back then. But then during that time, motherfucking, Shy-D bust some shit out. Shy-D shit was kind of a mixture between, “Planet Rock” and “Egyptian Love” but it was rawer. So, it was that down south bass. After Shy-D comes, “Throw That Dick.” Now it’s like, “Oh shit! What’s this shit?” Because it was nasty, but it was bangin in the clubs. It’s all about that bass, man. That really started it on the bass side. Luke and nem was big doing their thing and all of sudden bass started evolving. When I graduated from college in ’89, I went to Atlanta to visit Steve because he was down there for the Art Institute and I was like, “Man, I gotta come the fuck down here. I had went there to visit him for Christmas and I had the time of my life.

You didn’t want to leave (laughing).

DC The Brain Supreme: Seeing black folks in harmony. I grew up in Denver, Colorado. I’ve never not known love. I had a solid household and even the cats that didn’t, we all were a community and took care of each other. And we all were friends with white folks, Mexicans. I didn’t know anything about racism until I got down to Atlanta. Motherfucker might slip and call me nigger in California, it was all good. It wasn’t shit. That shit happens down here, that shit’s a whole different ballgame. It evokes an emotion that is very visceral.

How did you get your start?

DC The Brain Supreme: How I got my start in hip-hop, Johnny Z, a white boy introduced me to heavy metal. So, I was listening to heavy metal and shit my freshman and sophomore year of college. He wanted this drum machine. He got a Yamaha drum machine and the first Tascam recorder. And he didn’t know how to use it. I was like, “Shit, I’ll learn how to use that motherfucker.” Because we had drum machines, but we used to have to go to the studio to do the shit and that shit cost money. It was fun though. That shit made me. When I learned how to use the Tascam, my other homeboy, he was from the Bay, his name was, Cornell. He had an 808. I was like, “Let me use that motherfucker, man.” Because that was the time the Beatie Boys and Run-DMC were using 808’s heavy. He was like, “I ain’t gonna let you use it, but you can come over here and make a bunch of beats.” I went over there and made about 10-beats. Made them up real quick. I made about 10-beats and then just put shit over them. I sent that shit to Steve and Steve was like, “What the fuck, this nigga make songs?” So, then he had to go get him a Tascam and then it just became a competition of us making songs back and forth. That’s how we grew.

Fast forward, I’m a big DJ in California. I’m doing all the parties and I was like, “Fuck it, I’m going to Atlanta.” Soon as I step into Atlanta, I’m like, what the fuck am I going to do and how am I going to do it. I had a job at CNN coming up in the fall. So, I was like, “What the hell am I gonna do,” and then I went to Magic City and the DJ sucked. Luckily Magic was sitting right there and I’m like, “You need a DJ, dog?” He was like, “Come see me Monday.” I went and seen him Monday and he was like, “I don’t need a DJ, but I need a cook. I’m a chef too, right. I said, “Alright bet!” He said, “You can be the backup DJ.” I went to work that Tuesday. I think I made two orders of chicken wings and made one salad. There was another woman there with me. And the other DJ there, his name was, Dre. He was like, “Hey man, I’m about to go run some errands, man. Why don’t you cover for me?” And you know back then, cardinal rule and cardinal sin, never let another nigga on your shit. He will take your shit. He let me do that shit. I made them girls more money than they ever made. And this was day shift. That shows you the culture back then was best kept secret. You know all the businessmen come in the daytime and we were in that motherfucker rockin. And by that weekend, I was the head DJ. Just like that. Because I had musical expertise from being a DJ and getting records from all over the country.

Be sure to check back for part II with DC The Brain Supreme from the classic group Tag Team!

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