Jay Jay Kukalay
Category:
(dance
style) Foot Stomping Cheer
Source: Azizi Powell Collection {Pittsburgh, PA.
1993
,
Lillian Taylor Camp}
Soloist #1:
Jay Jay Kukalay
Group: Jay Jay Kukalay
Soloist #1:
Shalesha Lahndah
Group:
Shalesha Lahndah
Soloist #1
Step back, Shalonda
Group
Step back, Shalonda
Soloist #1 Oosh, my lover boy
Group:
Oosh, my lover boy
Soloist #1:
Oosh, Oosh my lover boy
Group:
Oosh, Oosh my lover boy
Soloist #1:
See ya later.
Group:
See ya later.
Soloist #1:
I’m callin on, I’m callin on, I’m callin on...
(The soloist's says the next soloist's name or nickname. That new soloist
and the group repeats the entire song. This continues until everyone has
had one turn as the soloist}.
The beat for “Jay Jay Kukalay”
is “stomp clap/ stomp stomp clap/ stomp clap/stomp stomp clay”. This beat
continues without pausing throughout the entire chant. By the way, this is
the beat pattern that is used for the majority of foot stomping cheers.
When the soloist says (and the group says) "Back Back Shalonda", they step
backwards to the beat in a cha cha like movement. When they say "See ya
later" the soloist, and then the group waves goodbye.
It should be noted that "Jay Jay Kukalay" is a modified foot stomping
cheer, since it starts with the soloist's voice and not the group voice as
most foot stomping cheers do. For more information on foot stomping
cheers, visit Cocojams' Foot Stomping Cheer page.
I collected “J.J. Kukalay” in 1993 from my daughter, Tazi Powell. Tazi was
a camp counselor at Lillian Taylor camp when she learned this cheer. The
cheer was used as one of the songs that the girls and boys sang in front
of the camp's "Singing Tree". In this case, the "group" was the entire
camp and the "soloist" was a specific group (such as "I'm callin on. I"m
callin on Group 3"). Since that summer camp was really "in to cheers",
it's likely that the children in that camp learned this cheer from hearing
it being chanted and informally performed by girls (and boys?).
Unfortunately, I have no idea from which Pittsburgh neighborhood this
cheer came from {meaning who introduced it to the rest of the camp}, and
when, and how it was first introduced to attendees of that children's
summer camp. At my suggestion, my daughter asked children attending
Lillian Taylor camp what “Shalesha Langa” meant. None of the children had
any idea what these words meant.
In 1998, I also
collected a slightly different version of this cheer titled
“J.J. Cool Aid” from a Caucasian woman in her 20s who said that she
grew up in a predominately African American neighborhood in Washington
D.C. Although the title was written as I have given it, another way that
it could be written is "J.J. Kool Aid" after the popular
sweetened powder for making juice drinks.
I can't
verify this, but it's my theory that “J.J. Kukalay”
and "J. J. Cool Aid" are based on the Ghanaian {West Africa} children's
song "Kye Kye Kule" {which is sometimes written "Che Che Kule"}. If I'm
correct, these American "versions" of that West African song would have
been created as a result of folk etymology. Folk etymology is said to
occur when people change foreign or other unfamiliar words to words and
sounds that are pronounced like or almost like words they know.
When I
hosted cultural groups for Pittsburgh area children in the mid 1990s, I was surprised to learn that many of the
elementary aged children had already learned the song Kye Kye Kule
as a result of that song being included in music textbooks. Here is the version of the song that I found in a music book
used by the Pittsburgh Public School District in the mid 1990s:
Che Che Kule
Che Che Kofisa
Kofisa Langa
Langa te Lange
Kum Adende
Kum Adende. Kum.
=snip-
I've also found "Kye Kye Kule" in a number
of other American children’s music books. Usually the books indicate that
the song is to be performed as a rhythmic head & shoulder touching game in
the same manner as "Head & Shoulders, Baby 1, 2, 3".
In the Pittsburgh area in the 1990s, the highly regarded African American
performing arts group, the Shona Sharif African Drum & Dance Ensemble
often performed this song. The group asked for volunteers (children and
adults) from the audience to come on stage to perform this song. The
lyrics were taught as a call & response song in which the performers first
touched their head, then touched both of their shoulders, then moved their
hips from side to side, and finally jumped up or hoped on one foot on the
last word "Kum". Of course, when the audience members leave the stage, the
professional dancers used the song to "get down" {meaning they performed
some real exciting African dance moves}.
If you examine the title and lines of the African Kye Kye Kule song and
the African American J.J. Kukalay foot stomping cheer, you'll see a lot of
similarities. The titles of the cheers certainly sound the same. “Shalesha
Langa” sounds a lot like “Kofisa Langa”. And the word "Shalonda" in the
sentence "Step back, Shalonda”, is pronounced like the word “salanga”.
Sticking with my folk etymology theory, I believe that, since they didn't
know what in the world "salanga" meant, the children chose a word that
sounds like a word they did know. In this case, it was a girl's name-or
more specifically- a name like the African American female names that have
cropped up since the 1970s that either start with “Sha” or "Cha",
(pronounced "Shah" ) and/or end with “onda” or “anda” (pronounced "ohn-da"
or "ahn-dah). In the context of this foot stomping cheer, I believe that "Shalonda"
is used as a female name in the same way as the name "Sally" is used for
all girls whose turn it is to be in the center of the circle in the
traditional children's game "Little Sally Walker", or the newer version of
that game "Little Sally Walker {Walkin Down The Street"..
In the 1980s, I met a Ghanaian man from the Ewe ethnic group, and asked
him about
the Kye Kye Kule song. This man, whose name I don't recall, told me that
with the exception of the "Kum" at the end, the lyrics that I recited for
him were basically as he had sung it in his childhood. Though most of
these words didn’t mean anything, I was told that “Kofi” is an Akan (Ghanaian) word that means “male born
on Friday” and “langa” means a person of low status, “an unclean
person”. This chant was recited as prelude to a hide & go seek game.
One person is chosen to be Kofi, the langa. Kofi chases other people and, by touching them, he would make
them unclean too.
In 2004, I asked another Ghanaian man I had met
the same questions. Nana Kwesi Afriya, from the Asante (Ashanti) ethnic
group, confirmed the information previously given about the meaning of "Kofi"
and "langa". However, Nana Kwesi said that school girls and boys chanted
this as part of a ring game in which one person {Kofi, whether male or
female}, walked around the ring and at the end of the chant tapped
someone. Those two then ran around the circle and tried to be the
first one to sit in the vacant spot. The loser became 'Kofi". I
would like to thank Nana Kwesi for this information and share with you the
chant as he remembers it:
Kyekule,
Kyekyekule.
Kyekye kofi sa x2
Kofi salanga x2
Salatilanga x2
kum ayede , kumayede , kumayede
There was also no ending "Kum" sound for this
version of the song. Probably we (Americans) put it there to emphasize the
ending. Having learned the song with this ending, I confess that I
prefer it that way. I don't imagine that the Ghanaians mind our
revisions too much us. After all, improvisation is the very much in
the African tradition.
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