mr. jin, mr. chin, and the zunguzung meme

ever since yellowman first sang "zunguzungunguzunguzeng" on wax, other performers have been unable to resist its catchy melodic contour. it turns up again and again, and not just in reggae songs. recently, it seems to have become more a part of hip-hop's vocabulary than reggae's. and whereas it seems plausible that krs-one, mos def, and biggie smalls are all consciously making reference to yellowman (as well as each other, and probably super cat), it seems more likely that joe buddens is simply referencing biggie smalls and perhaps jin is referencing only joe buddens. a terribly tenacious melody, yellowman's phrase recurs with such frequency and plays a role in so many seminal hip-hop songs that it serves as one of the more audible examples of how deeply reggae informs hip-hop. of course, as i have been finding in my research, the sound of jamaica has been the sound of new york for a while now.

despite the irony of representing the local with sounds from elsewhere, there seems to be little sense of contradiction for the performers borrowing these sounds. when krs references yellowman (and supercat), he's representing the bronx, which was--as evidenced by the deep reggae roots of criminal minded--a pretty jamaican place by 1987. when biggie smalls references krs and king yellow, he's representing his west indian heritage, his hip-hop, his brooklyn party vibe. when mos def references krs in 1998, he keeps the torch aloft for hip-hop and brooklyn but reaches back before biggie for a solid foundation. when joe buddens references biggie, he's representing the figure of the playa and the self-referential world of the pop music industry. when jin references joe, he's representing a young entertainer trying to grab people's ears with something familiar. too bad so few recognize that jin references yellowman not only in his reference to buddens, but also in the interpolated bridge from "mister chin"--yellowman's "black korea" (if you will)--which wyclef apparently decided would sound good if sung by some breathy back-up girls against an orientalized version of that hackneyed "egyptian" theme over a james brown sample that das efx should have retired long ago. for emphasis, the producer of hatian descent shouts "bomboclaat" all the way to the bank and threatens non-compliant DJs in patois. (what? creole ain't cool or something?) i mean, what's more chinese than that? (click here for a quick aural comparison of mr. jin and mr. chin.)

to provide a little sonic review, i've spliced together all the references i have found to this melody to date. below is the order in which they appear. make note, in particular, of the way yellowman sings the second part of the phrase in his live version. the ascending melody--rather than a simple repetition of the first part--creates an AB form [as opposed to AA], which most subsequent performers seem to copy, at least up to joe buddens, oddly enough, who seems to perform a version closer to yellow's original. maybe he just didn't have the range.

here's an mp3.

yellowman - "zunguzung" (1982)
yellowman, w/ fathead - "zunguzung" (live at aces) (1982)
super cat - "boops" (1986)
boogie down productions - "remix for p is free" (1987)
bounty killer - "kill or be killed" (1994)
biggie smalls - "player's anthem" (1995)
black star - "definition" (1998)
joe buddens - "pump it up" (2003)
jin - "learn chinese" (2004)
yellowman - "zunguzung" (1982) [repeat]

(this is a work in progress. if anyone can add more to the story, please email me.)

i put this little blog together after receiving an email from hua hsu, who thought that i had an interesting take on jin's "learn chinese" and asked to post it in his blog. here's the original email i sent him, which, in a nod toward the yellowman compilation look how me sexy, i titled "look how me chinese":

yo hua,

i'm sure you've been over this one again and again at this point, but i've been kinda fascinated with jin's "learn chinese" since i finally heard it last week. what really struck me was not the play to (ridiculously stereotyped) ethnic particulars that seems the common strategy for too many non-black MCs. what really struck me, of course, was jin's rather jamaican way of saying it.

i've been tracking a few jamaican musical memes, if you will, across time and space, and one of the more common ones starts with yellowman's "zungazung" and spins off into super cat, BDP, bounty killer, biggie smalls, black star, and joe buddens, to name a few. the same recurring phrase--although perhaps rather removed from any recognition of its source--turns up in jin's rhyme, though here it simply seems like an allusion to joe buddens's allusion to biggie smalls's allusion to yellowman (and i suspect that, in this chain, only biggie knew this consciously). the combination of this obscure(d) reference to king yellow, however, with an interpolation of his "mister chin"--reggae's "black korea," if you don't know it--seems significant enough to work its way into my chapter on this particular instance of circulation. "learn chinese" is a pretty awful song, i think, but interesting as hell. why wyclef decided throwing an orientalized version of that hackneyed "egyptian" melody over the james brown sample that DasEfx should have retired, and scream "bombaclaat" over the ending, is totally bizarre and explainable perhaps only as a lazy and uncreative production job, if a possibly savvy bit of marketing.

you can find hua's blog here.