Entry · catalog no. 1274
who gon check me boo
/ huː ɡɑn ˈtʃɛk miː buː /hoo gon CHEK mee BOO
interjection · Atlanta, Georgia · 2000s
✓ Verified
1.
A defiant challenge: name the person with the standing to correct, restrain or discipline me. Check is the older Black English sense of putting somebody back in their place. The boo on the end is the twist — a term of endearment delivered with mock sweetness, which turns the line from a threat into a dismissal.
“They can say what they want on that timeline. Who gon check me, boo?”
Origin & Attribution
Black Atlanta, 2009. Sheree Whitfield said it to a party planner on the Season 2 premiere of The Real Housewives of Atlanta after he told her to watch herself before she got checked. The parts are much older Black vernacular — to check somebody, and boo as an endearment — but the sentence is hers. It is persistently misattributed to NeNe Leakes in GIF captions and misdated to Season 1 in 2008; Bravo's own Season 14 episode title "Who Gon Check on Me, Boo?" in 2022 is a callback, not the origin.
2009
Sheree Whitfield says the line on The Real Housewives of Atlanta S2E1, "New Attitude, Same ATL," 30 July
2009
Reality blogs quote the scene within days; the phrase begins circulating detached from the show
2022
Bravo titles an RHOA Season 14 episode after the line
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
Atlanta, Georgia · 2000s
Spoken by
Black Atlanta speakers; now general Black internet vernacular
$WHOGONThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady17 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
88/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
2009
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
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
The Real Housewives of Atlanta S2E1, "New Attitude, Same ATL," Bravo, 30 July — television · 2009
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceReality Tea, contemporaneous report on the scene, 3 August — blog · 2009
submitted
See also