LeBron/Wade could make for the greatest game of NBA Jam…ever.
![i said boom boom boom everybody say wayo i said boom boom boom everybody say wayo](https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.851934690.8792/ssrco,long_t_shirt,mens,fafafa:ca443f4786,front,tall_three_quarter,x1000-bg,f8f8f8.1u5.jpg)
If that wasn’t enough, sports media, NBA teams, and players have tweeted out many a boomshakalaka. Many YouTube compilations of dunks use an NBA Jam boomshakalaka sound clip or feature boomshakalaka in their title.īringham Young University has even gone so far as to name their annual dunk competition Boom Shakalaka.īYU hoops 3rd annual "Boom Shakalaka" is on October 23rd at 7pm MT in the Marriott Center per #BYUSN Thanks to NBA Jam, boomshakalaka has become an expressive sound effect associated with impressive dunks in basketball. NBA Jam went on to become a very successful video game franchise-and influential, given that its signature boomshakalaka was taken up by the wider basketball community come the 2000s, from broadcasters to fans. They also found it to be the perfect onomatopoeia for a slam dunk, with the boom representing the ball going through the rim and the shakalaka the rim rattling afterwards. The game developers loved Kitzrow’s enthusiastic delivery of the expression.
![i said boom boom boom everybody say wayo i said boom boom boom everybody say wayo](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/TepidMeatyCobra-size_restricted.gif)
Kitzrow later attributed his boomshakalaka to one of NBA Jam‘s scriptwriters, who apparently watched Stripes during production of the game. The boomshakalaka from Stripes inspired its most noted use, in basketball. In the 1993 video game NBA Jam, the in-game commentator, voiced by Tim Kitzrow, uses over-the-top exclamations for big plays, especially boomshakalaka for powerful slam dunks. The soldiers dance while chanting boomshakalaka, a possible reference to popular versions of “I Want to Take You Higher.” The 1981 military comedy film Stripes includes a scene where Bill Murray’s character, John Winger, trains soldiers in song and dance rather than drills. In cover versions of the song, other artists, such as by Tina Turner, sang boom-laka-laka-laka as boom-shaka-laka-laka. The song includes the funky and sexy nonsense vocables boom-laka-laka-laka. Boomshakalaka may have roots in the 1969 song “I Want to Take You Higher” by Sly and the Family Stone.