Archaic terms for it include "slip-slapping", "slapping the plank" and "soul shake".
[3] In the 1927 film The Jazz Singer, actor Al Jolson performs the low five, in celebration of the news of a Broadway audition.
[3] "Gimme Some Skin" was a term current in 1940s Hipster subculture and had crossed over to mainstream culture, as seen in the 1941 Abbott and Costello film In the Navy where the Andrews Sisters perform "Gimme Some Skin, My Friend" and choreograph giving low fives.
[4] Soon after in the high-profile 1943 all-star Black film Stormy Weather, Cab Calloway receives a double low five from The Nicholas Brothers as they begin their dance number to Calloway's song "Jumpin' Jive".
Fred Astaire later told the Nicholas Brothers that the "Jumpin' Jive" dance sequence was "the greatest movie musical number he had ever seen".