“Pump Up The Jam” by Technotronic

"Pump Up the Jam" opens Technotronic's 1989 debut, Pump Up the Jam: The Album, and it's the track that carried a Belgian act onto the American charts. Patrick de Meyer and Thomas de Quincey are credited with the music, de Quincey produced, and vocalist Ya Kid K wrote the words, bolting rap onto a deep house throb in an early hip house blueprint that has been called the first Eurodance hit in the US. It stalled at number 2 in Britain and on the Billboard Hot 100 alike.

At first, though, the face in the video wasn't hers: Congolese model Felly Kilingi lip-synced on screen and fronted the original album cover as a marketing ploy, until an American tour and a redesigned sleeve with Ya Kid K's own picture put things right. A 2005 remix by D.O.N.S. topped the British dance chart, and Slant and Billboard have both since ranked it among the greatest dance records ever.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.