| BY KEDIESHA PERRY— Observer writer— | 1 |
VETERAN deejay Sister Nancy is again on cloud nine after her 1982 hit Bam Bam soared to pole position of the Reggae iTunes chart following its being featured in the new season of the Netflix series Ozark on the weekend.
“Of course, I watched it. It’s not the first time [the song has been number one]. You have to feel good when something like this happens. I remember recording like it was yesterday. Bam Bam is my life. Otherwise from my daughter, it’s my whole life, it’s how I live. I have not forgotten anything,” she told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.
Bam Bam was a last-minute addition to Sister Nancy’s 1982 album One, Two which was recorded at Channel One studio in Kingston. It was produced by Winston Riley and released on his Techniques label. Earlier this month, it was certified silver in the United Kingdom for 200,000 in streaming and digital by the British Phonographic Industry.
In its latest screen feature on season four of Ozark, Sister Nancy’s Bam Bam plays in a scene near the end of episode one — titled The Beginning of the End.
Even after 40 years, Sister Nancy said she remembers penning and voicing the track as if it were yesterday.
“I went to the studio with Yellowman one day and he did a Bam Bam also. Then, in the same time, I wanted to complete the One-Two album. It (Bam Bam) ended up being the 10th song on the album. The next day, I went into the studio and freestyled [my version], got it on a tape, then went home and wrote the lyrics,” she said.
Errol “Flabba” Holt, Robbie Shakespeare, Carlton “Santa” Davis, Sly Dunbar, Lincoln “Style” Scott, Ansel Collins, Wycliffe “Steelie” Johnson, Winston Wright, Marvin Brooks, Christopher “Sky Juice” Blake, Dean Fraser, and Ronald “Nambo” Robinson are among the musicians who worked on the One, Two album.
Sister Nancy’s Bam Bam samples lyrics of Toots and the Maytals’ winning 1966 festival song of the same name.
Five years ago, American rapper Jay-Z sampled the song in his recording Bam, which was included on his 2017 album 4:44. The song charted at number 93 in the United Kingdom, and numbers 47 and 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs charts, respectively.
In the meantime, she recently finished a track with UK-based artiste Mad Professor for a forthcoming album. She’s still promoting her latest single, Armageddon, released last October.
Now a full-time artiste, Sister Nancy is gearing up to go on a series of tours.
“My last live performance was November 13 [2021]. I will be touring all year in places like Australia, Europe, and so on. We were supposed to tour in 2020, but because of the pandemic that had to be put off,” she said.
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