Entry · catalog no. 1273
bad mama jama
/ bæd ˈmɑmə ˈdʒɑmə /bad MAH-muh JAH-muh
noun phrase · national · 1970s
✓ Verified
1.
A woman who is strikingly, formidably attractive — thick, built, commanding. The admiration has a little intimidation in it: she is not just pretty, she is a lot. Extended less often to any person or thing that is impressively powerful.
“She walked in the cookout in that yellow dress and the whole yard went quiet — bad mama jama.”
Origin & Attribution
Black American. The second half is the minced oath mammy-jammer or mama-jammer, a euphemism for motherfucker documented in Black speech and Black-authored writing from the 1940s on — Mezzrow and Wolfe in 1946, H. Rap Brown in Die Nigger Die! in 1969 ("it was a sweet mama-jammer"). Joined to Black English bad meaning excellent or formidable, the admiring construction is in place by the late 1960s; a 1969 record is titled "Baddest Mammyjammy." Carl Carlton's 1981 hit put it in the national ear but did not coin it, and Carlton did not write it — Leon Haywood did.
1969
H. Rap Brown's Die Nigger Die! prints "a sweet mama-jammer"; a record titled "Baddest Mammyjammy" appears
1981
Carl Carlton releases "She's a Bad Mama Jama (She's Built, She's Stacked)," written by Leon Haywood; No. 2 R&B
1982
The record draws a Grammy nomination
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
national · 1970s
Spoken by
Black American speakers nationally; heaviest in the funk and R&B era
$BADMAMThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady57 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
81/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1969
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
H. Rap Brown, Die Nigger Die!, p.109 — memoir · 1969
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceCarl Carlton, "She's a Bad Mama Jama (She's Built, She's Stacked)," written by Leon Haywood — single · 1981
submitted
See also