has my back

[Paul McFedries]

Tom Wolfe uses "Gotcha back!" as a recurring theme throughout A Man In
Full. It's used almost exclusively by black characters.

I checked Lexis and the earliest site I could find for this variation is
from May 15, 1994:

     NOW, THE WORLD has come to a supply attire for just such
     occasions. Considering the facts that someone is shot
     every 88 minutes in New York and 23% more civilians died
     in gun related homicides than in traffic fatalities in
     Los Angeles, a Brooklyn-based manufacturer, The Shell,
     Inc., has designed gear made specifically for the times.
     The line of clothing is made of Spectrashield, the
     lightest and most effective anti-ballistic armor on the
     market.

     The company's motto: "We gotcha back", is the very security
     that urban youth are in search of. With tensions between
     them and the police and each other flying through the
     neighborhoods as often as bullets, security through growing
     up is what the world has come to.
     --The Ethic News Watch

Paul
Books: http://www.mcfedries.com/books/
Word Spy: http://www.logophilia.com/WordSpy/