Entry · catalog no. 5008
TCB
/ /ˌtiː siː ˈbiː/ /tee-see-BEE
verb phrase / initialism · Black urban speech nationwide; Detroit and the chitlin circuit prominent · 1960s
✓ Verified
1.
To take care of business: to handle one's responsibilities — work, money, love — promptly and thoroughly, with no excuses.
“Rent paid, kids fed, promotion earned — she's been TCB all year.”
Origin & Attribution
The parent phrase 'take care of business' circulated among Black jazz musicians by the mid-1950s, and the clipped initialism TCB was everyday Black speech by the mid-1960s — Aretha Franklin recalled it, alongside 'sock it to me,' as ordinary Detroit neighborhood talk. Her sister Carolyn Franklin helped put it on wax: the 'Take care, TCB' ad-lib in Aretha's 1967 rearrangement of 'Respect' announced the term to the country from a Black woman's mouth, demanding competence be met with respect. Motown ratified it the next year when Diana Ross and the Supremes and the Temptations titled their 1968 NBC special and album TCB. Elvis Presley took the initialism up around 1969, stamping TCB with a lightning bolt on jewelry, jets, and his band's name, and for decades the logo has been remembered as his. It was not: TCB was Black vernacular for at least a decade before Graceland trademarked its look.
1955
'Take care of business' current among jazz musicians
1967
Aretha Franklin's 'Respect' carries 'Take care, TCB' to No. 1
1968
Motown's TCB TV special; Elvis adopts the initialism soon after
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Black urban speech nationwide; Detroit and the chitlin circuit prominent · 1960s
Spoken by
Jazz and soul musicians, Black radio, and the neighborhoods that supplied both
$TCBThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Faded71 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
65/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1955
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Respect — Aretha Franklin — 1967
song · verified
■
TCB (Diana Ross & the Supremes with the Temptations) — 1968
song · verified
■
+ Cite a sourceChapman, Dictionary of American Slang (phrase by 1955, jazz)
scholarship · verified
See also