boogaloo

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Attested as a style of dance since at least January 1966 (and found in the titles of many songs around that time), perhaps from boogie (for the ending, compare crackaloo, hullabaloo).[1] (Compare Spanish bugalú, the Spanish name for the style of music and dance.) Kent Harris used the stage name "Boogaloo" in the 1950s.[1] The sense "sequel or repetition" refers to the title of Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984), a sequel which was considered to be so bad it became a cult classic.[2] Compare the sense "black person" to boogalee, a term for a Cajun, attested since 1960 or earlier.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

boogaloo (countable and uncountable, plural boogaloos)

  1. (music, uncountable) A genre of music that blends rhythm and blues and soul music with Cuban-style rhythms, originating in the United States in the 1960s.
  2. A style of dance to this music, popular in the 1960s.
    • 1966 August 11, Jet, volume 30, number 18, page 63:
      Most hip Gothamites now trying to get rhythmic understanding between arms, legs and sacroiliac in order to get in on the Boogaloo dance craze.
    • 2012, John Shepherd, David Horn, Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Volume 8: Genres: North America, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 313:
      Fania did not begin as a boogaloo label but it was also quick to sign new, previously unheralded talent, including Bobby Valentin, George Guzman, Monguito Santamaria, Joe Bataan and the teenage Willie Colon.
  3. (music, countable) A piece of music, or an instance of dancing, in or of this style.
    • 1991, Black American Literature Forum:
      Basie played boogie-woogie, and Ellington boleros and boogaloos. To see the Marsalis faction rap a standard or breakdance before the blues would bring them full-circle, in full embrace, […]
    • 2013, Francesca T Royster, Sounding Like a No-No: Queer Sounds and Eccentric Acts in the Post-Soul Era, University of Michigan Press, →ISBN, page 34:
      They enjoy a martini or a boogaloo in bachelorette apartments in unnamed cities. These album covers plant the seeds for my growing taste for camp and for my use of music as a space for dreaming up new selves.
  4. A type of freestyle, improvisational street dance incorporating soulful steps and robotic movements, originally danced to funk and disco, but later more commonly to hip-hop.
  5. (Internet slang, humorous) A sequel or repetition of events, etc. Often used to mock a lack of creativity.
    • 2014, Jaqueline Girdner, Murder My Deer, Open Road Media, →ISBN:
      “Felix, I—” “Kate, come on,” he begged. “We're a team, sleuth times two, boogaloo. We can do it.”
    • Electric boogaloo meme
  6. (Internet slang, US politics) A hypothetical second American Civil War, in which far-right or antigovernment activists rise up against the government.
    • 2020 January 10, Hannah Allam, “'Boogaloo' Is The New Far-Right Slang For Civil War”, in NPR:
      Today, boogaloo has seeped out of the gaming community and found fertile ground in militant fringe movements. That includes anarchists and others on the far left. But it's especially popular among right-wing militias and self-described patriot groups.
    • 2020 August 23, Adam Gabbatt, “The Libertarian party was up and coming in 2016. What happened?”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      This month, the party involved itself once again with the boogaloo movement, when Cohen spoke at a gun rights rally co-hosted by a self-described “boogaloo boy” in Richmond, Virginia. Cohen used his speech to argue relaxing gun laws could end police violence.
  7. (derogatory, possibly dated) A black person.
    • 1935, The Morning Post, Camden, NJ:
      A naked savage in one mud village quarrels with another savage, as naked and as black as himself, in the next mud village. They quarrel about Boo-Galoo's chickens scratching up Gaw-Balaw's melon seed, or about Gaw-Balaw's hogs rooting in Boo-Galoo's yam patch (1935).
    • 1939, M. Philips, Letter to Time Magazine:
      I like the explanation of this war given by "Boogaloo", a happy-go-lucky Negro, as he talked with my husband.

Derived terms[edit]

Verb[edit]

boogaloo (third-person singular simple present boogaloos, present participle boogalooing, simple past and past participle boogalooed)

  1. (intransitive) To dance in this style.
    • 1972, John Asberry McCluskey, The Pilgrims (also printed as 1974, John McCluskey, Look What They Done to My Song: A Novel, Random House, NY):
      She would have screamed in the judge's face, getting her man ninety years and a day. "You two boogaloo like an old married couple," I tell them after they've danced stiffly for a few minutes.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “boogaloo”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
  2. ^ Hannah Allam, "'Boogaloo' Is The New Far-Right Slang For Civil War", NPR, 10 January 2020

Further reading[edit]

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