An Exploration of Hand Games on Screen: review of Oscar short-listed Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games

Written by Laya Hartman

30 for 30, Black Girls Play Graphic.

Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games, the short documentary produced by ESPN and directed by Michéle Stephenson and Joe Brewster, tells the long history of hang games that have been played by Black girls for generations. Three girls stand with their arms and hands extended, laying on each other's (palm up), so the three are connected. Looking down in concentration, with slight anticipation on their faces, they sing the rhythm of the game. Their hands move in unison. Several girls stand surrounding the three and watch for what will happen next. As the singing rhythm and claps get faster, smiles arise and fear is spiked as one person will be clapped out of the game. This hand game is a competition. May the niftiest girl survive. 

“Black girls are the earliest carriers of black musical aesthetics,” explains ethnomusicologist Kyra D. Gaunt, noting how the music of the African diaspora originates with dance music, and can be traced back to the metrical complexities found with hand games black girls played generations ago. After Africans were imported to countries such as America, West African drums and instruments associated with African music were taken away, music educator Marvelene Moore explains. African Americans had to find ways to adapt and began using the human body as an instrument used to create meaning, rhythm, and music. 

This short film shows Black people in groups stomping their feet and clapping their hands to create rhythmic beats. Sometimes, a few people would stand in the middle of the group, leading a dance or showing their own bodily expression of the sounds created. They even found ways to make sounds with arbitrary objects, such as empty bottles. A man blows into a bottle, creating a smooth humming noise which he contrasts with another bottle to create a rhythm and song.

This short film is effective in tracing the history of hand games. Reaching all the way back to rhythm and sounds in West African drumming, to the hand claps and handshakes that NBA players do pre-competition in 2024, there is an accurate representation of the community that evolved for hand games to thrive as modes of storytelling and culture. The importance of this history lies in the necessity to understand where what makes us who we are, comes from. 

Though, the documentary did fall short in depth, not delving into any one era long enough to fully understand its cultural implications at the time. While the film still represents this history from a holistic standpoint, where were the hand games that Black girls play today? How have Black girls adapted these methods into new sounds?

Half way through in the film, we meet Jamila Woods. Walking through the doors of an empty bar, Jamalia meets up with the rest of her band to rehearse. She warms up her flute, and talks with a band member about their goals for the day. The band uses an improvisation strategy called “Call and Response.” After one musician plays a tune and rhythm, the next person repeats it and the pattern continues. The group talks about how there are ‘no right answers,’ and they play to love what they feel. This style of music mimics an adapted style of hand games– where each player must repeat the previous person and everyone gets a chance to lead. Given a powerful and effective antidote from Jamalia and the band, the film quickly moves to the next subject. 

I was left wondering more. Given the time, if the documentary stuck with this group longer to explore the sounds that the band came up with, or showed them performing live at the bar, this would have shown how Black girls, like Jamalia, can adapt traditions from their ancestors and re-evolve them into beautiful, contemporary music. 

The film gave various examples of mainstream songs created within the past 50 years that rhythmically can be traced back to the origins of hand games. The rhythmic complexity that these games required, along with rhymes and other humming sounds are reflected in the hip-hop genre that we hear musicians create today. 

The film shows music videos from two hip-hop artists. Nas, an African American rapper, and the creator of “Oochie Wally,” a song that originated from a Jamaican hand game song. And Little Anthony and the Imperials singing “Shimmy Shimmy Cocoa-Pop,” which was inspired by part of a game played by Black girls called “Down, Down Baby, Down Down the Rollocoatser.” Just 50 years later, Nelly released “Country Grammar” in 2000, which adapts the same chorus of the original hand game. Both music videos in the film show hand claps and rhythmic body movement from Nas, Nelly, and background dancers. These hand and feet movements mimic clips seen earlier in the film when Black children play hand games. The comparison between enslaved children and million dollar artists was effective in showing how vastly different environments created a similar joy in the sounds made. The hidden elements of Black childrens’ creation of hand games is what makes hip-hop what it is today. 

This film should be watched by anyone who considers themselves fans of hip-hop, jazz, rhythm and blues, and genres adapted by black culture. Films like Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games, help people effectively understand where what makes us who we are, comes from. The cultural histories that exist from blowing into empty bottles to create tunes, to the music videos we watch on our phones, is worth exploring to remember those that came before us, for a more promising future.