The Song of the Day is:
Sister Nancy – “Bam Bam”
Released as a single in 1982
Dis woman neva trouble no one
I’m a lady, I’m not a man
MC is my ambishan
I come fi nice up JamaicaSo bam bam, what a bam bam
Bam bam dilla, bam bam
Bam bam dilla, bam bam
Winston Riley – Ophlin Russell
Go ahead, name your favorite female reggae artist….I’ll wait. Truth is, reggae is not a genre of music that has been very welcoming to women. I’m not Jamaican, and I’ve never been to Jamaica, but when someone who has studied as much reggae music (admittedly, from a distance) as I have, and has trouble identifying female reggae artists, I would say that the genre has a diversity problem. I don’t really have a solution for a nation that I’m not a part of, I will just say that I am sure there was room for more women in the genre. As part of my newly-initiated summer of reggae music effort, I felt I shouldn’t go any further without playing a female reggae artist, so today we are featuring Sister Nancy. Though reggae had been quite popular on the island nation for roughly two decades (even back to when it was known by names such as ska and rocksteady), this song didn’t come out until 1982. She is technically a part of the dancehall subgenre, which did seem to be more welcoming to female singers; dancehall usually used preexisting backing tracks and usually substitutes street-worn subject matter over reggae’s spiritual (often rastafarian) subject matter. Dancehall singers often mirror the role of MC’s in old school rap music. This song, frankly, sounds older. The recording is not great, but it is fairly traditional. “Bam Bam” has gained much attention in the ensuing decades, as generations of rappers and R&B have sampled and interpolated this recording. Most recently, Lizzo borrowed from it for her breakthrough song “Truth Hurts”, as well as have artists such as Kanye West, Lauryn Hill, Jay-Z, Groove Armada, and Chris Brown, as well as being featured in movies such as Belly and The Interview. This is informally considered the most sampled reggae song ever. Sister Nancy’s natural patios riddim just rolls off her tongue and makes for an instantly likable sound that makes it so repeatable. “Bam Bam” uses the backing track from Ansel Collins’ “Stalag 17” and takes inspiration from an earlier track of the same name by Toots & the Maytals. Ophlin “Sister Nancy” Russell, a protege of albino dancehall legend Yellowman, has not made music her entire life’s focus, rather she has entered and exited the business as she pleases. She has often issued remarks to the effect of “she left the music business in Jamaica to make room for more female artists”, which just highlights that there must have been a real issue with genre equality in the genre. While “Bam Bam” was not a chart success in her native Jamaica, it’s become well known throughout the world, and Sister Nancy, who is not yet sixty, occasionally re-enters the performing world to celebrate its success, though it was a shock to her that “Bam Bam” has received such latent recognition.
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