The Interview, that schlocky Seth Rogen film about Kim Jong-un, already had one unintended consequence: it led to a hacking attack on the film’s studio Sony by a group with alleged ties to the North Korean government. But the film had another, equally surprising ramification, one that has arguably influenced some of the world’s biggest artists. When the film was released in 2014, Ophlin Russell was working at a bank in New Jersey. In another life she had been Sister Nancy, the first female Jamaican dancehall DJ, a trailblazing performer who had played with the biggest soundsystems in the country. Back in 1981, she had written nine tracks that could have been an album. Told that albums usually needed 10 tracks, she wrote Bam Bam, a semi-freestyle sung over Ansel Collins’s 70s dub-reggae staple Stalag riddim.
The album was successful in Jamaica, but it was only when she moved to New Jersey in 1996 that she realised Bam Bam had been sampled dozens of times and included on the soundtrack of Hype Williams’s film Belly. But, owing to the vagaries of Jamaican record contracts, Russell had never seen a penny from it. So she took the job at the bank.
Then came The Interview, and a typically Rogen-esque scene in which Kim Jong-un strides around naked, soundtracked by Bam Bam. The song shot back to the top of the reggae charts and was featured in a Reebok ad. Russell had had enough. She sought a lawyer, who secured her 10 years’ worth of backdated royalties and 50% of future publishing on Bam Bam, enough for her to give up accounting.
With the song back in the public consciousness, Kanye West used it on his controversial track Famous, the song’s sour lyrics about Taylor Swift suddenly segueing into the open heavens of Sister Nancy’s redemption. Russell still wasn’t happy. “I don’t understand why they would want to sample,” she told the Fader, keen instead to re-record the vocal “with someone who’s worthy of it”. Step forward Jay-Z. His new track Bam features the original sample, but in the video he travels to Jamaica to record with Damian Marley and Russell, who re-records her vocal: it’s a rawer, pained performance. Afterwards, the three artists talk about what it feels like to create something timeless. “Good music it will last,” she tells them. “Even when I go where I’m supposed to go, my daughter’s gonna say: ‘That’s mummy’s Bam Bam.’”
