Pump Up the Jam

"Pump Up the Jam" is the opening track on Belgian act Technotronic's album Pump Up the Jam: The Album. Released as a single, it was a worldwide hit, reaching number two in the United Kingdom in 1989 and in the American Billboard Hot 100 in early 1990. The song was later certified triple platinum (in 2005, it would be remixed by internationally renowned DJ-producer D.O.N.S., who took it to number one on the British Dance Chart). Ya Kid K provided the vocals for the track. She was initially overshadowed by model Felly Kilingi, who appears in the music video and features on the album cover.

Cultural references

On an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Will Smith sang the chorus out of tune and danced to a drum cover of the song as comedy. The song was the background music of a Saturday Night Live skit that featured Nancy Kerrigan figure skating with Chris Farley and in a scene in the 1996 movie Space Jam, in which the Looney Tunes and Michael Jordan were getting ready to play basketball. It featured in the karaoke video game SingStar 90s, in a scene in the 2008 film You Don't Mess with the Zohan. The song was the basis for Soni De Nakhre, a Bollywood song featured in the movie Partner, which was itself loosely based on the movie Hitch. It was used in a 2008 cellphone commercial in Argentina, which explained "why translated songs aren't as good". The song was translated as "Infla la mermelada" (word by word, though not correctly, "Pump the jam").