In this episode of CuriosiD, we answer the question:

“What is the origin of ‘What up doe’?”

The short answer

‘What up doe?’ was a condensed greeting between drug dealers — dope boys — that operated in Detroit in the late-1970s and 80s. Doe = dough = cash.

The dark origins of ‘What up doe’

Professor and Poet Aurora Harris grew up in Detroit, bounced around the city including a couple semesters at Detroit Pershing High School, home of the Doughboys.

“We had the drug culture with the heroin, with Pony down gang, Young Boys Incorporated, the Errol Flynns,” Harris said. “And then in the 80s, we had the Chambers Brothers, you know, doing the heavy cocaine stuff.”

Detroit music producer Waajeed says that’s how he remembers it growing up in the 80s on the city’s east side.

“Unless you had a certain status, you couldn’t walk in the street. You had to walk on the sidewalk. Only the dope boys could walk in the street,” Waajeed said.

Each crew had their own identity.

“I remember those guys…they wore a specific type of hat. They wore, like Max Julian jackets, leather, really, really nice jackets with fur and around the collar and Stan Smith Adidas,” Waajeed said.

“Those were the guys that would say, ‘What up doe?’ in my neighborhood.”

In the 80’s “What up Doe” was a form of sonar – a call and response way of navigating the neighborhood.

“So you could check someone with ‘What up, doe’,” Waajeed said. “You could say ‘What up doe’ as a greeting, as a way of saying, ‘hello,’ ‘Aloha,’ whatever, but it was also a way of…making sure that a person is aware that you’re aware of them.”

For Harris, ‘What up doe’ meant talking to the dope boys — not to score drugs, but to find her niece who had a substance use disorder.

Harris wrote a poem to discuss her experience — a pain that was shared by many Detroiters over the past five decades.

“Good morning, my brother, yo, I’m not a cop, not Po Po. How you doing today? Can you talk for a minute? I’ll make it real quick, because you clock in sunlight, cars and corners. I’m looking for my kid, my sister, brother, auntie, uncle, Mama, daddy, nephew, my niece.”

A salutation. A greeting. A cry for help.

“None of y’all should be out here. I gotta find my baby,  / Yo if I see her, what you got for me? / You got that cross on the chain, wearing Jesus on your chest? I’ll, I’ll pray for you daily. That’s all I got left.”

But meanings can change over time.

“What up doe was born out of love and pain from the 70s to the 90s, to be born again as Detroit’s unique and coded greeting for strangers, families and friends.”

From the underground to Detroit catchphrase

For Detroit Comedian Tiffany Barber — T-Barb on stage — that greeting has always been a part of her life. 

“I was in the womb saying ‘What up doe,’ Barber said. “I was in my mama third trimester, and I was in there, and I said, ‘What up doe’. And she got gas when I said it”

Rap-group Afrocentric Wicked Old-school Lyricists AKA A.W.O.L. is said to have been the first Detroit act to put ‘What up doe’ in a single, but the recording has been tough to track down.

Others have been easier to find.

• The Big Dog’s ‘What Up Dow’

• Dice’s “Whut Up Doe”

• Danny Brown’s “What up Doe”

• And most famously Tone Tone’s “Whaddup Doe”

Then Eminem’s cinematic classic 8 Mile gave ‘What up doe’ a worldwide platform.

Waajeed says that’s alright.

“In the same way that Detroiters are wearing the Tigers’ hat and know absolutely nothing about baseball, it’s the same way that some people are saying ‘What up doe’ and just have no real cultural reference and understanding towards what it is and who it’s for,” Waajeed said.

“And either way is okay.”

Barber says she’s not about to gatekeep — in most circumstances.

“We’re cool with everybody. One thing about Detroit is we’re some of the coolest people that you’ll ever meet. We’re always the friendly ones. We’re always the inviting ones,” Barber said.

“So we invite you to say ‘What up doe’, but you can’t capitalize off of ‘What up doe’ if you not from Detroit.”

“Leave our ‘What up doe’ alone when it comes to the paper, that’s our money, but we welcome you to embody the culture,” Barber said.

There have been attempts to turn ‘What up doe’ – and its many visual iterations – into paper. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has denied at least two attempts to trademark the phrase.

Detroit music producer and philanthropist Filthy Rockwell has a Whatupdoe clothing and goods line.

Poet Aurora Harris says ‘What up doe’ belongs to everyone now.

“I feel like at this point the term is like Motown Records,” Harris said. “It was born in in Detroit, and it’s gone global. There’s nothing we could do about it. Be happy about it.”

Still, is all this just a little problematic given the phrase’s roots in drug culture?

“Detroiters are adaptable. We’re resilient, and we could take anything that’s a tragedy or anything that’s a trauma and turn it into something good.”

About the listener

Peter Bloye was born in Detroit and raised in Dearborn Heights.

For him, the origins of the question came when he was working for the City of Detroit a few years ago.

“I heard a lot of different things that people would say I was unfamiliar with. And  I would ask my crewmates, like, ‘hey, what does this mean exactly?’ And you know, we had a good relationship, and they would explain it. But this phrase, I got different answers. So I really like, ‘Okay, well, none of those really work for me.’ So I just was still curious.”

Bloye no longer works for the city. He’s a full-time caretaker for his mother in Allen Park.

Did he ever feel comfortable using the phrase?

“No, I did not, ”Bloye said. “It seemed like an exclusively Detroit thing,”

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