The Origins & Meanings Of The Word "Sambo"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part I of a three part series on the word "sambo".

Most of this post focuses on the etymology (the origin and meaning) of the name "Sambo". However, I've also included a comment from a folk discussion forum about the Caribbean meeaning of the word "sambo" and I've also included an excerpt of a critique of Helen Bannerman's 1899 book Little Black Sambo. I've included that last excerpt because of the undeniable influence that book has had on cultural connotations about the name "Sambo".

Click http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Sambo.aspx for information about the history of the "Sambo" stereotype.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/09/sambo-in-examples-of-songs-from-thomas.html for Part II of this series. Part II of this series presents examples of the name "Sambo" in songs/rhymes that are featured in Thomas W. Talley's 1922 book Negro Folk Rhymes: Wise & Otherwise.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/09/caribbean-folk-songs-include-word-sambo.html for Part III of this series. Part III showcases Caribbean folk songs that include the word "sambo".

These posts are presented for cultural and informational purposes.

All copyrights remain wth their owners.

Thanks to those who are quoted in this post.

DISCLAIMER: These posts aren't meant to imply that these are the only songs that include the word "sambo".

Also, I'm aware that the source of the word "sambo" may be more than one traditional African language, and that word (including that name) may have different meanings in those languages, aside from the meanings that were given that word outside of African cultures. Furthermore, I believe that it's also likely that the word "sambo" meaning "mixed racial" came from a different source than the personal name "Sambo".

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MY COMMENTS ABOUT THESE SELECTED QUOTES
I've assigned numbers to these excerpts for referencing purposes, but must confess that I prefer the eytmologies for the word "sambo" that are given in the first three excerpts than the etymology that is given in for that word in the Wikipedia excerpt which I assigned #4.

Excerpt #5 refers to the meaning of the word "sambo" in the Caribbean [as does a portion of Excerpt #1]

Excerpt #6 is from an critique of the 1899 book "Little Black Sambo".

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VARIOUS QUOTATIONS ABOUT THE WORD "SAMBO"
Excerpt #1: From http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sambo
"sambo (n.2) stereotypical name for male black person (now only derogatory), 1818, American English, probably a different word from sambo (n.1); like many such words (Cuffy, Rastus, etc.) a common personal name among U.S. blacks in the slavery days (first attested 1704 in Boston), probably from an African source, such as Foulah sambo "uncle," or a similar Hausa word meaning "second son."

It could be used without conscious racism or contempt until circa World War II. When the word fell from polite usage, collateral casualties included the enormously popular children's book "The Story of Little Black Sambo" (by Helen Bannerman), which is about an East Indian child, and the Sambo's Restaurant chain, a U.S. pancake-specialty joint originally opened in Santa Barbara, Calif., in 1957 (the name supposedly from a merging of the names of the founders, Sam Battistone and Newell "Bo" Bohnett, but the chain's decor and advertising leaned heavily on the book), which once counted 1,200 units coast-to-coast. Civil rights agitation against it began in 1970s and the chain collapsed, though the original restaurant still is open. Many of the defunct restaurants were taken over by rival Denny's.

sambo (n.1) "person of mixed blood in America and Asia," 1748, perhaps from Spanish zambo "bandy-legged," probably from Latin scambus "bow-legged," from Greek skambos. Used variously in different regions to indicate some mixture of African, European, and Indian blood; common senses were "child of black and Indian parentage" and "offspring of a black and a mulatto."

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Excerpt #2: From https://web.ccsu.edu/afstudy/upd4-3.html
Vol. IV, no. 3 (Summer 1997) Africa Update Archives
“African Languages and Ebonics" by Dr. Katherine Harris, Central Connecticut State University
..."It is nevertheless too simplistic to conclude that African Americans retained nothing of their multilingual heritage. One can look briefly at naming practices to find evidence of linguistic ties. For example, Juba, one of the day names given to a male child along the Guinea coast, was also a nickname given to a girl born on Monday in slave communities to describe "tomboy" (1620s-1800). The name Juba, which was fairly common among African men in the l7th and l8th centuries, was also the name of a region in modern Kenya/Somalia and Sudan.

The erosion of African names also occurred. Samba, meaning comfort in Wolof, is still recalled in musical form in Brazil, where there remains a strong African presence. A possible derivation of Samba is Zambo (Southern/Central Africa), which also means to give comfort. Other derivatives are Sambu in Mandinka and Sambo in Hausa. The fact that the name was at one time fairly common and no longer used may have relationship to a song popularized by white Americans during the war from 1861-1865, "Sambo's Right To Be Kilt," and especially the derogatory usage of the name enshrined in the book Little Black Sambo."

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Excerpt #3
http://www.answers.com/topic/sambo-3 "Oxford Companion to African American Literature:
"Variants of the name Sambo can be found in several African cultures, including Samba in Bantu; Samb and Samba in Wolof; Sambu in Mandingo; and Sambo in Hausa, Mende, and Vai. Throughout census materials and assorted other eighteenth-century documents, these names emerge as those of new world slaves. The name also has possible Hispanic antecedents: the sixteenth-century word “zambo” refers to a bowlegged or knock-kneed individual.

By the late eighteenth century, whites had begun to use the name in a generic fashion to refer to male slaves. Before long, comic associations were commonplace; childishness, sloppiness, and a propensity to mispronounce multisyllabic words were the key traits of a Sambo figure. Such characters emerged in late eighteenth-century plays and sheet music, and became mainstays of nineteenth-century minstrelsy. By the time Helen Bannerman's The Story of Little Black Sambo was published in 1898, the name was thoroughly linked with the image of an immature, fun-loving, inept, black male."...

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Excerpt #4: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo_(racial_term)
"The word "sambo" came into the English language from the Latin American Spanish word zambo, the Spanish word in Latin America for a person of mixed African and Native American descent.[2] This in turn may have come from one of three African language sources. Webster's Third International Dictionary holds that it may have come from the Kongo word nzambu (monkey). Note that the z of (Latin American) Spanish is pronounced like the English s rather than as the z in the word nzambu. The Royal Spanish Academy gives the origin from a Latin word, possibly the adjective valgus[3] or another modern Spanish term (patizambo,) both of which translate to "bow-legged".

The equivalent term in Portuguese-speaking areas, such as Brazil, is cafuzo.

Examples of "Sambo" as a common name can be found as far back as the 18th century. In Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair (serialised from 1847), the black skinned Indian servant of the Sedley family from Chapter One, is called Sambo. Similarly, in Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), one of Simon Legree's overseers is named Sambo. Instances of it being used as a stereotypical name for African Americans can be found as early as the Civil War. The name does not seem to have acquired the intentional, open derogatory connotation until the first half of the 20th century”...

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Excerpt #5: From http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=138244
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Big Big Sambo Gyal (jamaica)
From:Q; Date: 11 Jun 11 - 10:37 PM
..."In notes with another "Sambo" song*, Walter Jekyll, 1904, remarks: "A Sambo is the child of a brown mother and a black father, being a cross between black and white. The Sambo lady, very proud of the strain of white in her blood, turns up her nose at the black man. She wants a white man for a husband. Failing to find one, she will not marry at all."
-snip-
* "Another "Sambo" song = another song that includes the word "sambo" other than the song "Big Big Sambo Gyal" which is the focus of that folk music forum's discussion thread. I'm not sure about the name of that other song. However, the lyrics for and comments about "Big Big Sambo Gyal" are included in Part III of this pancocojam series.

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Excerpt #6: http://people.lis.illinois.edu/~heinric3/514LBS/LittleBlackSambo5.html "Helen Bannerman's Little Black Sambo:
Critical Evaluation
"Sambo’s name also worked against him in the United States. Bannerman’s choice of the name Sambo was understandable in her setting. Although the content and context of the tale are decidedly Indian (tigers, ghi, the bazaar, curly but not kinky hair, and the Indian place of authorship), Bannerman biographer Elizabeth Hay believes the author consciously chose a name she knew was associated with Africans (161). But the name Sambo could easily have been a variant of Sambasivan, a common boys’ name for the Tamil ethnic group among whom the Bannermans lived in Madras (“Tamil Names”)....

In any case, uprooted from India and transplanted in American soil, the name turned out to be most inopportune. Sambo had become the generic name for a stereotyped, subservient, dim-witted African American male. As early as 1843, “Sambo” was the title character in the song “The Fine Old Color’d Gentleman” by Dan Emmett, founder of the first blackface minstrel troupe".
-snip-
I've also read the theory that the name "Sambo" in Helen Bannerman's book could have come from the name for the Indian god "Shiva"*. However, I agree with "Bannerman biographer Elizabeth Hay [that] the author consciously chose a name she knew was associated with Africans" in large part because Bannerman also used other African words as names in that book [i.e. Black Mumbo for Sambo's mother and Black Jumbo for Sambo's father]. She also wrote and had published other books that used names which "were associated with Africans". Read my comment below for more about this.
-snip-
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva "The name Śambhu (Sanskrit: शम्भु), "causing happiness", also reflects this benign aspect [of Shiva].

Also, http://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/%C5%9Bambhu/index.html
"Śambhu, another common name or epithet of Śiva, has been compared with the Tamil chempu or Śembu meaning "copper," i.e. "the red metal."
-snip-
While the name "Sambo" and the name "Sambu" are spelled simiarly, they have different etymologies and meanings. I doubt that Helen Bannerman, the author of "Little Black Sambo" was alluding to Sambhu when she named that character "Sambo"..

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Langston Hughes - "A Dream Deferred" (information, words, & video examples)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post showcases two YouTube examples of Langston Hughes' 1951 poem "A Dream Deferred". This post also includes information about Langston Hughes and his "Dream Deferred" montage which contains the poem that begins "What happens to a dream deferred". The complete words to that short poem are also included in this post.

The content of this post is presented for cultural, historical, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Langston Hughes for his creative legacies. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.

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INFORMATION ABOUT LANGSTON HUGHES
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes
"James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance."...

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From http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83
..."[Langston] Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself."...

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INFORMATION ABOUT LANGSTON HUGHES'S "MONTAGE OF A DREAM DEFERRED"
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montage_of_a_Dream_Deferred
"Montage of a Dream Deferred is a book-length poem suite published by Langston Hughes in 1951. Its jazz poetry style focuses on descriptions of Harlem (a neighborhood of New York City) and its mostly African-American inhabitants.[1] The original edition was 75 pages long and comprised 91 individually titled poems, which were intended to be read as a single long poem.[2] Hughes' prefatory note for the book explained his intentions in writing the collection:

In terms of current Afro-American popular music and the sources from which it progressed— jazz, ragtime, swing, blues, boogie-woogie, and be-bop—this poem on contemporary Harlem, like be-bop, is marked by conflicting changes, sudden nuances, sharp and impudent interjections, broken rhythms, and passages sometimes in the manner of a jam session, sometimes the popular song, punctuated by the riffs, runs, breaks, and disc-tortions of the music of a community in transition.[3]

The primary motif of the poem is the "dream deferred", which represents the opposition between Harlem of the 1950s and the rest of the world.[4] Other motifs include boogie-woogie and discrimination against African-Americans. The poem is characterized by its use of the montage, a cinematic technique of quickly cutting from one scene to another in order to juxtapose disparate images, and its use of contemporary jazz modes like boogie-woogie, bop and bebop, both as subjects in the individual short poems and as a method of structuring and writing the poetry.[5] The poem is divided into five sections (although some editions contain six); each section represents a different time of day in Harlem, moving from dawn through the night to the dawn of the following day. The poem begins and ends with the same two lines: "Good morning, daddy! / Ain't you heard?".[5] Montage of a Dream Deferred was Langston Hughes' first major publication following the end of World War II.[5] Its themes include the subjugation of the black community, African-American racial consciousness and history, and the need for social change to resolve the injustices faced by the residents of Harlem."
-snip-
The short poem that begins "What happens to a dream deferred" is part of this montage.

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WORDS TO THE POEM: DREAM DEFERRED (HARLEM)
By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79YjXKYeWCk

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FEATURED EXAMPLES
Example #1: "Dream Deferred (Harlem)" Langston Hughes poem GREAT EXAMPLE of Harlem Renaissance literature

.

Tim Gracyk, Published on Jul 2, 2013

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Example #2: A Dream Deferred



Huntington Theatre Company, Published on Feb 13, 2013

What happens to a dream deferred? LeRoy McClain ("Walter Lee Younger" in the production) performs the classic poem by Langston Hughes. The Huntington's production of Lorraine Hansberry's timeless family story A RAISIN IN THE SUN, directed by Liesl Tommy, plays March 8 - April 7, 2013 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre.
-snip-
Click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Raisin_in_the_Sun to read about the 1959 play A Raisin In The Sun

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"Freedom Road" poem by Langston Hughes as sung by Josh White

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post showcases a recording of Josh White's performance of the song "Freedom Road", a vocalization of Langston Hughes' 1944 poem of the same name. This post also includes the words to this poem/song, background information about that composition, as well as information about Langston Hughes and about Josh White.

The content of this post is presented for cultural, historical, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Langston Hughes and Josh White for their creative legacies. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this sound file on YouTube.

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INFORMATION ABOUT LANGSTON HUGHES
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes
"James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance."...

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From http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83
..."[Langston] Hughes, who claimed Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg, and Walt Whitman as his primary influences, is particularly known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories and plays, as well as poetry, and is also known for his engagement with the world of jazz and the influence it had on his writing, as in his book-length poem Montage of a Dream Deferred (Holt, 1951). His life and work were enormously important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Unlike other notable black poets of the period—Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and Countee Cullen—Hughes refused to differentiate between his personal experience and the common experience of black America. He wanted to tell the stories of his people in ways that reflected their actual culture, including both their suffering and their love of music, laughter, and language itself."...

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INFORMATION ABOUT JOSH WHITE
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_White
Joshua Daniel White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969), known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist...

White grew up in the Jim Crow South. During the 1920s and 1930s, he became a prominent race records artist, with a prolific output of recordings in genres including Piedmont blues, country blues, gospel, and social protest songs. In 1931, White moved to New York, and within a decade his fame had spread widely; his repertoire expanded to include urban blues, jazz, traditional folk songs, and political protest songs. He soon was in demand as an actor on radio, Broadway, and film.

White also became the closest African-American friend and confidant to president Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, White's anti-segregationist and international human rights political stance presented in many of his recordings and in his speeches at rallies resulted in the McCarthyites assuming him to be a Communist. Accordingly, from 1947 through the mid-1960s, White became caught up in the anti-Communist Red Scare, and combined with the resulting attempt to clear his name, his career was damaged.

White's musical style influenced many future generations of musical artists,[list of artists given]"...

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INFORMATION ABOUT THE POEM/SONG "FREEDOM ROAD"
From https://chnm.gmu.edu/episodes/mobilizing-african-americans/ “That’s Why I’m Marching”: Mobilizing African Americans for War
"Many African Americans were understandably ambivalent about World War II. Black Americans who had committed themselves wholeheartedly to the “war for democracy” returned from World War I to find the Klan marching in Washington and segregation undiminished. Now the government asked them to risk their lives in a war against Nazi racism abroad, while in many parts of their own country American law forced them into separate and distinctly unequal facilities. Even the armed forces, within which African Americans were supposed to strike their blows for democracy, maintained strict segregation, with African Americans generally relegated to service and support jobs. Why should they fight to secure for foreigners’ rights that they could not enjoy at home?

..."African-American leaders constantly reminded their fellow citizens, and themselves, that this was their country too; they had shaped its history in profound ways. They walked a difficult line. Often patriotic, they nevertheless found America’s institutionalized and pervasive bigotry increasingly hard to endure. Langston Hughes, the distinguished poet and writer, hoped that African-American participation in a war against racism abroad might undermine racism at home. In 1944 he contributed the lyrics to the folksinger Josh White’s song “Freedom Road.” The lyrics call for an end to fascism and a new beginning of race-blind justice. White described it as “a rousing plea for true democracy.” Franklin Roosevelt considered Josh White, best known for his religious songs, his favorite singer; White’s brother Billy served as Eleanor Roosevelt’s chauffeur. The recording session for “Freedom Road” was sponsored by the CIO as part of a collection, Citizen CIO, aimed at building support for the war among union members and working-class Americans generally"...
-snip-
"CIO" = initials of the labor union "Congress of Industrial Organizations". In 1955 that labor union combined with The American Federation of Labor to form AFL-CIO, "a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of fifty-seven national and international unions,[3] together representing more than 11 million workers (as of June 2008, the most recent official statistic)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFL%E2%80%93CIO

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WORDS TO THE POEM/SONG "FREEDOM ROAD"
"Josh White, a singer most famous for religious songs and folk tunes, here joins with poet Langston Hughes in the song “Freedom Road,” in which he attempts to link the war abroad to the struggle for racial justice at home.

That’s why I’m marching, yes, I’m marching,
Marching down freedom’s road.
Ain’t nobody gonna stop me, nobody gonna keep me,
From marching down freedom’s road.

Hand me my gun, let the bugle blow loud,
I’m on my way with my head a-proud,
One objective I’ve got in view,
Is to keep a hold of freedom for me and you.

That’s why I’m marching, yes, I’m marching,
Marching down freedom’s road.
Ain’t nobody gonna stop me, nobody gonna keep me,
From marching down freedom’s road.

Ought to be plain as the nose on your face,
There’s room in this plan for every race,
Some folk think that freedom just ain’t right,
Those are the very people I want to fight.

That’s why I’m marching, yes, I’m marching,
Marching down freedom’s road.
Ain’t nobody gonna stop me, nobody gonna keep me,
From marching down freedom’s road.

Now, Hitler may rant, Hirohito may rave,
I’m going after freedom if it leads me to my grave.
That’s why I’m marching, yes, I’m marching,
I’m marching down freedom’s road.

United we stand, divided we fall,
Let’s make this land safe for one and all.
I’ve got a message, and you know it’s right,
Black and white together unite and fight.

That’s why I’m marching, yes, I’m marching,
Marching down freedom’s road.
Ain’t no fascists gonna stop me, no Nazis gonna keep me,
From marching down freedom’s road.

Words by Langston Hughes, music by Emerson Harper, “I’m Marching Down Freedom Road,” 1942. Recording: That’s Why We’re Marching: WWII and the American Folk Song Movement , Smithsonian/Folkways 1996."

Source: https://chnm.gmu.edu/episodes/mobilizing-african-americans/

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FEATURED EXAMPLE: Freedom Road - Josh White



ABevs1, Published on Mar 24, 2012

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The REAL Meanings of "Burn Baby Burn" & "The Roof Is On Fire"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This post provides a partial time line & some comments about the chant & musical refrain "burn baby burn" or its variant form "burn mf* burn and the musical refrain "the roof is on fire". This time line is from 1967 - 2002 and particularly focuses on the Soca record "Follow The Leader".

This post also includes comments gleaned from an informant about how "the roof is on fire" chorus was chanted in call & response style at certain African American parties & dance clubs beginning in the mid 1980s. My comments about the cluster of "being on fire"/"getting hot" Black slang terms that mean something that is done very well or someone who is doing something very well [such as playing musical instrument, singing, or dancing] are also included in this post.

The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and folkloric purposes.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2013/11/four-videos-of-soca-record-follow-leader.html for a companion post that showcases four videos of the Soca song "Follow The Leader".

All copyrights remains with their owners.

*”mf” is my abbreviation for the widely known expletive that has two syllables which begin with those letters.

TIME LINE
1967
From http://www.answers.com/topic/riots-urban-of-1967
"Gale Encyclopedia of US History:
Urban Riots of 1967"
"Beginning in April and continuing through the rest of the year, 159 race riots erupted across the United States. The first occurred in Cleveland, but by far the most devastating were those that took place in Newark, New Jersey, and Detroit, Michigan. The former took twenty-six lives and injured fifteen hundred; the latter resulted in forty deaths and two thousand injuries. Large swaths of ghetto in both places went up in flames. Television showed burning buildings and looted stores, with both National Guardsmen and paratroopers on the scenes."

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1978
From http://www.metrolyrics.com/disco-inferno-lyrics-the-trammps.html “The Trammps – Disco Inferno Lyrics"
The Tramps song includes the verses:
"(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down
(Burn baby burn) disco inferno
(Burn baby burn) burn that mother down...

Up above my head
I hear music in the air
That makes me know
There's a party somewhere"...

(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot
(Just can't stop) when my spark gets hot"
-snip-
It’s my position that those lines refer to sexual energy, to a dance event & dancers who are "hot", and to an expanded meaning of the fires that occurred during the riots of 1967. That expanded meaning alludes to the need to burn down [tear down] mainstream America’s (and the world’s) entrenched, unjust system to make way for a more just, equitable system for all. It's important to emphasize my view that these interpretations don't mean that that song condoned or encouraged riots or burning businesses, or other such actions.

The “up above my head” verse is almost entirely lifted from the African American Spiritual with that name. However, in that Hip Hop Song, the "up above my head" verse refers to music at a disco party and reflects the role of that music - to "heat up" [raise the energy of] those in attendance that party. In other words, that song’s purpose is to help “get the party jumpin” with loud and energetic music [music that is “bumbin” ].

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1984
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roof_Is_on_Fire
"The Hip Hop song "The Roof Is On Fire" was composed and recorded in 1984 by the Bronx, New York based Hip Hop group Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three.

"The Roof Is on Fire" is a single from Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three which was released in 1984 that reached number five on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart.

That song is remembered for its chorus:
“The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!
We don't need no water—Let the mf* burn!
Burn, mf*, burn!"
-snip-
*This expletive is fully spelled out in those lyrics and on that page.
-snip-
Another page about that group, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Master_Scott_%26_the_Dynamic_Three, indicates that “Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three was an old school rap group best known for the singles "The Roof Is on Fire" and "Request Line", both of which have been sampled by many other groups, for a large variety of genres...

The phrase and hook from "The Roof Is on Fire" has become more notable than the band itself, having been sampled by groups such as Chemical Brothers, Coal Chamber, Kid 'n Play, Rancid, The Pharcyde, and The Bloodhound Gang and many others.”
-snip-
The use of the expletive "mf" is an extension of the word “mother” that is found in The Trammps’ song. In the context of those songs both of those words mean the same thing.

Read my comments above about the meaning of the “burn baby burn” chant.

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1992
The "burn baby burn" was re-introduced to a lesser extent in 1992 in relationship to the Los Angeles, California riots that were sparked by the acquittal of police officers who were charged in the Rodney King videotaped beating incident.

From http://www.brycezabel.com/instanthistory/2005/08/watts_riots_40t.html
"Watts Riots: Burn, Baby, Burn
During August of 1965, the Watts riots transfixed the nation in an explosion of racial violence that, when it was over, left 36 dead, 900 reported injured, over 4,000 arrested and at least $200 million dollars of property damage. It was an orgy of burning and looting that left the area looking like a ravaged war zone. It all started with an arrest of a black man by the hated LAPD on charges of drunken driving"...

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1997?
The Soca dance instruction song* “Follow Da Leader” was first recorded by the Trinidad & Tobago duo Nigel and Marvin Lewis. (The word "da" in that title means "the".)

"Follow Da Leader" includes a sample of the Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three's chorus of "The Roof Is on Fire" but the "Follow Da Leader" chorus purposely omits the expletive that is in that Hip Hop song. Inspite of that expletive being omitted, in the "Follow Da Leader" record & in Nigel's & Marvin's live performances of that song those singers noticably pause where that word would have been. In doing so, listeners to that song who are familiar with the inclusion of that expletive in the Hip Hop song which is the source of that refrain, can add that word during their singing of it, or they can feel a sense of "one upmanship because they are a "hip to the fact" that that expletive is implied by that noticable pause.
-snip-
*A "dance instruction" song is one in which the singer leads the listeners in the performance of various dance moves.

A number of online pages indicate that Marvin & Nigel were the original artists to record that song, but I haven't found any specific date for that recording. I also haven't found any biographical information about that group. Additions to this post with that information and/or links to that information would be appreciated.

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1988
The song "Follow The Leader" is re-recorded by The Soca Boys, a Dutch music group whose members are of Trinidadian ancestry.
From http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soca_Boys
[translated from Dutch to English]
“The Soca Boys is a Dutch dance act, which in 1998 scored a worldwide hit with the song Follow the Leader. Besides a number one hit in the Netherlands, the song reached the charts in European countries, the USA and South America."
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The lyrics, tune, and tempo of that recording are the same as in the original record by Marvin & Nigel Lewis.

The Soca Boys' "Follow The Leader" record is highly popular worldwide where it is used for a large number of activities, including parading in carnivals, dancing in conga lines during weddings receptions and as part of the entertainment on cruise ships and in resort clubs shows. The Soca Boys's "Follow The Leader" record has also been used in the Caribbean as the song for the children's game musical chairs. That record has also been played during parties, proms and for aerobic exercise routines such as Zumba and cheer-robics [at cheerleader camps]. The Soca song "Follow The Leader" has also been used as a fun sing & dance along activity in summer camps & schools, where it also has been used as a stress reduction activity or as a reward after test taking. Adults have also used "Follow The Leader" as a stress reduction activity.

{These uses for The Soca Boy's "Follow The Leader" song were gleaned from this viewer comment thread for a video of a video of that song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8zzG4n8CpM
WARNING: Like many other YouTube viewer comment threads, this thread includes profanity, sexually explicit language, racists comments, and other comments that are problematic.

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2000
The song "Follow the Leader" was recorded by the Spanish speaking group S.B.S.

The lyrics, tune, and tempo of that recording are the same as in previous recordings.
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Additions to this post with information and/or links to information about the music group S.B.S. would be appreciated.

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2002
Nigel & Marvin - Follow Da Leader (2002)
Nigel & Marvin record an updated version of their now classic party song. That 2002 version samples the dance beat of Chocolate Puma's "I Wanna Be" record.

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COMMENTS ABOUT THE USE OF "THE ROOF IS ON FIRE" CHORUS AT AFRICAN AMERICAN PARTIES & DANCE CLUBS
Remembrances of a 40 year old African American from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (referred to as "MH")

According to MH, "the roof is on fire” chorus from The Trammps Hip Hop record was a very widely used call & response chant at certain African Americans parties and small dance clubs from the mid 1980 on, and that chant is still heard at those venues, particularly those attended by African Americans who were young adults or teens during the mid 1980s. (The parties and small club events that MH recalls were in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Washington, DC. area and were largely attended by Black students or who attended colleges or universities. However, she believes that "the roof is on fire" was chanted the same way in other African American communities beginning in the mid 1980s as result of The Trammps' record with that title and that chorus. She further believes that that chorus has been chanted the same way since that time, particularly among Black party or dance club attendees who were young adults or teens in the mid 1980s.

MH explained that although the "the roof of fire" chant was known to be from The Trammps' Hip Hop song, that chant was almost always done independent of that record being played. When a party was "getting good", and/or as a means of raising the energy at those parties so that the party got even "hotter", someone in the crowd, or perhaps the dj would seemingly randomly yell “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire". Immediately afterwards people still dancing and other people at the party loudly responded “We don’t need no water – let the
"mf" burn”. [I asked this informant if the crowd actually said “mf”. She replied "yes", but indicated that she didn’t because she doesn’t curse.]. MH also said that “when people in her generation hear songs like the song “Follow The Leader” which leaves out that curse word, they know that word has been left out - that word is understood**, although it's not sung out loud.

MH said that she believes that "the roof is on fire" meant that the atmosphere at the party or club was "heating up"/"getting hot". That chorus had no political meaning what so ever.

**In this context “understood” means the same thing as what occurs with the word “You” that is left out of commands such as “Come here”.

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COMMENTS ABOUT THE "BEING ON FIRE/GETTING HOT" CLUSTER OF BLACK VERNACULAR TERMS
A number of Black slang [African American/Caribbean] terms are part of a "being on fire"/"getting hot" cluster. Those terms mean that something is being done very well or that someone is doing something very well [such as playing musical instrument, singing, or dancing].

Among those vernacular terms are "cookin", "smokin", "burnin", and [being] "on fire". I also believe that the logical result of something or someone being on fire resulted in the African American vernacular terms "dynomite", "the bomb", "sick", "killed [it]", "murdered", and "slaughtered". Those slang terms also mean "something that is done very well" or "someone doing something very well."

Note that "gettin hot" = "doing something very well" [because of that person's talent and/or skills or because the energy in a room has "heated up" are just two of a number of Black vernacular meanings for the word "hot".

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Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Special thanks to my informant MH.

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Visitor comments are welcome.

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