Entry · catalog no. 1328
the Cabbage Patch
/ /ðə ˈkæbɪdʒ pætʃ/ /thuh KAB-ij PATCH
noun phrase; verb · Miami and the Northeast club circuit; nationwide · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
A hip-hop social dance done with the fists clasped or held together in front of the chest and the arms turning in a flat horizontal circle, the shoulders and knees riding along with it.
“Soon as that record dropped everybody in the basement started doing the Cabbage Patch.”
2.
As a verb, to do that dance — cabbage-patching.
“My uncle is still cabbage-patching at every family reunion.”
Origin & Attribution
A Black social dance of the mid-to-late 1980s, spread through Black clubs, block parties and roller rinks before any record named it. The Miami bass group Gucci Crew II put it on wax with "The Cabbage Patch," on the 1987 album So Def, So Fresh, So Stupid, which built on Joeski Love's "Pee-Wee's Dance" and Herman Kelly & Life's "Dance to the Drummer's Beat." The name is generally traced to the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls then at the height of their popularity, though some accounts point to cabbage as older Black slang for money. It ran in the same wave as the Roger Rabbit and the Running Man.
1986
The move circulates in Black clubs and at parties ahead of any record
1987
Gucci Crew II release The Cabbage Patch on So Def, So Fresh, So Stupid
1990
Established in the standard hip-hop social-dance repertoire alongside the Running Man and the Roger Rabbit
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Miami and the Northeast club circuit; nationwide · 1980s
Spoken by
Black club and party dancers; hip-hop crews; still standard at Black family functions
$THECABThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady40 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
52/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1986
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
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Gucci Crew II, The Cabbage Patch, from So Def, So Fresh, So Stupid, Gucci Records
album track · 1987
■
+ Cite a sourceJoeski Love, Pee-Wee's Dance, Vintertainment Records — sampled on the Gucci Crew II record
single · 1986
See also