In terms of these two songs, it looks as if ‘Whoot’ was released first in March 1993, and hit the Billboard singles charts first, debuting at #93 on the chart dated May 1st, 1993. ‘Whoomp’ was released in May 1993 and fairly quickly eclipsed ‘Whoot’ by the looks; it debuted at #65 on the chart dated May 29th, 1993. Within a couple of weeks ‘Whoomp’ had hit #23, and this seems to finally have pulled ‘Whoot’ into the top 50.

An article in Billboard magazine in June 1993 by Carrie Borzillo titled ‘Whoomp and Whoot Has Customers Wondering Who?’ pointing out there had been some confusion, and quoting a retailer saying that some customers had been confused about the two similarly titled songs. The article says it originated in a popular saying amongst young people in the South.

Listening to the two versions, to some extent they were clearly designed to appeal to different audiences. 95 South’s ‘Whoot’ is lyrically much more in your face about the ‘it’ in the song being the female posterior, and the video for the song is lower budget and features a fair bit more booty shaking. The music is a little faster in tempo and a bit more, in 1993, progressive sounding. It sounds like it is aimed at a black Southern party audience of the era. In contrast, Tag Team’s ‘Whoomp!’ has an older rap style more indicative of crossover rap of the era, and the beats are a little slower. Lyrically, the song is a bit more coy about what ‘it’ is, and the music video is higher budget, with shots focused on people who are likely models who have been dressed by a costume department. Some of whom are white. The video also has some extraneous shots of basketball, perhaps implying that the ‘Whoomp!’ might be a successful basketball shot.

All of this meant that ‘Whoomp!’ has an easier time getting on the top 40 radio stations (and MTV-style music video channels) that were integral to chart success, and was perhaps more applicable to other contexts. There doesn’t appear to have been a court case over the two songs, and perhaps this is down to the phrase in question ‘being in the air’ - but it’s pretty likely that ‘Whoomp!’ was intended to be a copycat version of ‘Whoot’ with more broad appeal, I think.

As to fads on the charts that then fade away, there’s hundreds of them. And pop music is littered with phrases that had been popular once, amongst someone. The record industry being an intrinsically commercial space, lots of musicians try their luck with knockoff versions perhaps with some sort of twist (e.g., The Isley Brothers, known in the early 1960s for the track ‘Shout’, released a follow up track called ‘Twist And Shout’ in order to capitalise on the dance fad The Twist). Perhaps more similarly in the 1990s, in Australia and the UK there were successful charting versions of ‘Macarena’ by Los Del Rio and also by Los Del Mar; at one point during the Macarena craze, Los Del Rio had the #1 single and Los Del Mar had the #2, presumably profiting from the public’s confusion.

One thing to remember is that with record sales in the 1990s, that there was no iTunes or Spotify. People had to visit a bricks-and-mortar record store in order to buy a single. Distribution, especially of singles on minor record labels, was sometimes quite haphazard, and the one you wanted was not always in stock (especially at smaller suburban record stores, or at department stores where the music section was not necessarily the highest priority, or staffed by someone who was with it). Along with a more regionalised radio industry in the USA than today (if not by that much by the 1990s), the fact of everyone buying singles physically rather than looking at the top chart on iTunes (etc) meant there was more space for regional hits; it might be that ‘Whoot!’ was a hit more specifically amongst black audiences in the South, and ‘Whoomp!’ had more crossover appeal.