How N.J.’s Sister Nancy, Jamaican Dancehall Star, Became ‘Bam Bam’ legend

Sister Nancy performing in Mill Valley, California in May. She consistently draws young crowds. Dana Jacobs | FilmMagic

How N.J.’s Sister Nancy, Jamaican dancehall star, became ‘Bam Bam’ legend and queen of samples.

If you’ve heard music, there’s a good chance you’ve heard Sister Nancy. That’s how much her song “Bam Bam” has saturated the globe over the past 43 years.

The opening horns signal that for the next 3 minutes and 17 seconds, the very rhythm and tempo of life will shift, and you will listen — because Sister Nancy has something to say.

When she announces herself with that “bam bam dilla, bam bam” chorus in her bright and robust voice, it’s easy to see why the song has had such staying power.

The artist recorded the tune after looking for one last track to complete her 1982 debut album.

“I’m a lady, I’m not a man, MC is my ambition,” she proclaims in the infectious “Bam Bam.”

Ambition fulfilled.

That track became the most sampled reggae song of all time.

“Bam Bam” and its influence can be heard in hits from Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, Kanye West and oh so many more artists.

Outside of Sister Nancy’s native Jamaica, the song took on a new life in New York, London and dance floors everywhere.

“I never heard ‘Bam Bam’ played in Jamaica before I came here,” she tells NJ Advance Media.

“I didn’t know that it was so powerful. I didn’t know that it was so big. I didn’t know how it was. But when I came here, I saw that this song is just huge.”

At 63, the dancehall icon, a longtime resident of New Jersey, has a busy schedule performing her music internationally. And she has no plans to stop “Bam Bam”-ing in every corner of the world.

“I’m booked straight through the 29th of November,” she says.

Now more than ever, Sister Nancy says it’s her time to be that MC she first sang about all those years ago.

The artist is the subject of the documentary “Bam Bam: The Sister Nancy Story.”

The film, screening at the Newark Black Film Festival July 19, covers the triumph of her voice in a scene dominated by men, the embrace of her dancehall anthem, and the artist’s fight for royalties after 30-plus years of not being paid a cent.

These days, Nancy, also known as Muma Nancy (“Mother Nancy”), is energized by newfound recognition of her story. She feels like her career has only just started.

“At 63, going to 64, it amazes me,” she says. “Even this morning, I was saying to myself, I’m talking to God, and I said I’m not gonna question him because I appreciate it, but it took so long, and it’s just the right time for me.”

The dancehall star has called Paterson home since the ’90s. She still owns a home there where her family lives, but currently resides in North Carolina, visiting Jersey every month.

Though she’s used to being on the road, there’s always something new to see. She recently returned from her first trip to Indonesia.

There, like just about everywhere else, she held court with adoring fans, moving young crowds who serve as a testament to her song’s ageless quality.

“They’re warm and nice,” Sister Nancy says. “They welcome me with an open heart. I love them.”

And they love her.

She’s not sure why she draws so many young people to shows.

“It surprised me because most of the time when I even perform, it’s just young people,” she says. “I really don’t understand. But I won’t question it because I’m glad. It’s good.”

Nancy had just returned home from her long journey when her agent fielded two more requests.

She’s wanted back in Indonesia.

A party starter with ambition

Alison Duke first heard “Bam Bam” at a basement party in her teen years.

“I remember when the record dropped in the party,” she tells NJ Advance Media. “We were like ‘what the … what?!’”

The album had just been released on vinyl.

“I remember that first time so clearly because the DJ, based on the reaction that we had, they played it over and over and over,” she says. “They must’ve played it five times in a row.”

It wasn’t just that Sister Nancy had made a hot song.

“For us women at the party, she represented a strong female voice,” says Duke, director of “Bam Bam: The Sister Nancy Story.”

The documentary premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2024 and is currently making the rounds at other festivals, like this month’s Newark Black Film Festival, before it becomes available on streaming in the United States.

At those basement parties, DJs would do separate sets for various genres of music.

“They’ll do a funk set, a hip-hop set, and then they would do a reggae set,” Duke says. “For most of the night, you’re hearing music that was created by men, and especially the reggae set, you wouldn’t hear hardly any female voices. And then when they put Sister Nancy’s record on — all of her records, but especially ‘Bam Bam’ — we just went crazy.”

So the Toronto-based filmmaker was particularly excited when Sister Nancy’s Canadian DJ, or selector, approached her about directing a documentary on the artist.

“I grew up with her music,” Duke says, recalling how Jamaican records like “Bam Bam” would make their way to Toronto’s Caribbean community.

“It was one time that we could put our hands up in the air, and then we just felt that the MC’s voice and the music was just as good or even better than what we were hearing from the men, and what she was saying about women’s empowerment was so powerful.”

Sister Nancy faced criticism when she first tried to make a space for herself in Jamaica’s male-dominated dancehall scene.

She directly addresses this experience at the start of “Bam Bam,” which came out when she was 20.

One thing she “can’t understand,” she says in Jamaican patois, is how people talk about her ambition, criticizing her pursuit of a career in music.

Some of them ask her where she gets it from, she says.

“It’s from creation,” she replies.

“This woman!” she exclaims later in the song, pitching her voice up in a kind of declaration of her intention to be heard.

“Never troubled no one,” she continues. “I’m a lady, I’m not a man. MC is my ambition.”

Duke marvels at her “magical” cadence and lyrical finesse.

“Like, who was rhyming like that back in the day??”

Dancehall dreams

Sister Nancy’s ambition took root in Jamaica.

She was born Ophlin Russell in Kingston, the second youngest of seven children (she has four more half-siblings through her father).

Her father was a revivalist pastor, so their house doubled as a church. Her mother was a teacher and bus driver.

Young Nancy would sometimes run away from home, but she idolized her older brother, dancehall and reggae deejay (as opposed to DJ) Brigadier Jerry, born Robert Russell. She would hear him toasting in the bathroom and eagerly jot down his words.

She started her own music career in a local sound system and began toasting in the dancehall scene, where men dismissed her music. But Nancy met reggae artist General Echo, who introduced her to the Winston Riley from the rocksteady group The Techniques, who had become a producer.

Nancy worked with Riley, releasing music on his Techniques label. Her songs were making it to the radio — first “Papa Dean,” followed by “Money Can’t Buy My Love,” “Proud-A-We,” “Transport Connection” and ”One, Two,” which became a big hit in Jamaica.

She had nine tracks altogether — enough for her debut album, also called “One, Two.”

But she needed one more.

Nancy knew what to do when fellow deejay Yellowman performed a take on “Bam Bam,” a 1966 song by reggae band Toots and the Maytals (known as The Maytals when the song was released).

In the song, Frederick “Toots” Hibbert sings about being a humble man who doesn’t cause trouble unless you trouble him — in that case, he’ll bring the “bam bam.”

“Bam bam” became a popular phrase repeated throughout dancehall.

Nancy decided to jump on it for a chorus, adding her own freestyled lyrics to create a new song with Riley, her producer.

The song is built on top of another winning staple of reggae, one that makes Sister Nancy’s words seem like they’re floating on a placid sea.

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