Bam Bam

Wikipedia credits Winston Riley and Ophlin Russell, though the Jamaica Observer says Riley held the credit on the master. It was the last track recorded for the album: she had nine songs and needed one more, went along when Yellowman recorded his own "Bam Bam" for Junjo, called Riley, who booked Channel One, and she freestyled it, writing the lyrics down only afterwards. She said in an interview that it was a little about things she'd been through and a little about where she comes from. The riddim is Stalag, from Ansel Collins's "Stalag 17" (Techniques, 1973, or 1974 in another Wikipedia article), recorded at Harry J studio with Santa Davis. The chorus borrows from Toots and the Maytals' "Bam Bam" (1966, produced by Leslie Kong).

It got little airplay in Jamaica, as she told Grammy IQ, and found its audience in the diaspora in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and with 1980s hip-hop producers. It is UK Gold (silver in January 2022 per the Jamaica Observer) and Platinum in New Zealand; Rolling Stone ranked it 454th on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs, and Billboard called it in 2016 a strong contender for the title of most sampled reggae song of all time. WhoSampled counts were reported at 155 and Wikipedia says over 130.

Main Source's "Just Hangin' Out" (1991), Chaka Demus and Pliers (1992), Pete Rock and CL Smooth's "The Basement" (1992), Too $hort (1993), Lauryn Hill's "Lost Ones" (1998), Groove Armada's "Fogma" (2001), Stylo G's "Badd" (2013), Kanye West's "Famous" with Rihanna (2016), Jay-Z's "Bam" (2017; 47 on the Hot 100 and 93 in the UK), Lizzo's "Truth Hurts" (2017), Spice (2018), Timaya (2018) and Hugel and Solto's "Jamaican (Bam Bam)" (2025) all use or cover it, and Beyonce sang it live in 2016. It appears in Belly (1998), The Interview (2014), Ozark (2022) and Dexter. Setlist.fm shows 78 setlists, with it played 20 times and "One Two" 7. Our upload is the 1982 studio album version.