Released March 1965 Recorded 1964 Length 2:05 | Format 7" vinyl Genre Rhythm and blues | |
B-side "Gee Baby Gee" or "I'm Gonna Get You Yet" | ||
"Iko Iko" (/ˈaɪkoʊ ˈaɪkoʊ/) is a much-covered New Orleans song that tells of a parade collision between two tribes of Mardi Gras Indians and the traditional confrontation. The song, under the original title "Jock-A-Mo", was written and released as a single in 1953 by Sugar Boy and his Cane Cutters that failed to make the charts. The song first became popular in 1965 by the female pop group The Dixie Cups, who scored an international hit with "Iko Iko". In 1967 as part of a lawsuit settlement between "Sugar Boy" James Crawford and the Dixie Cups, the trio were given part songwriting credit to the song. In 1972, Dr. John had a minor hit with his version of "Iko Iko". The most successful charting version in the UK was recorded by Scottish singer Natasha England who took her 1982 version into the top 10. "Iko Iko" became an international hit again twice more, the first being the Belle Stars in June 1982 and again with Captain Jack in 2001.
Contents
Background
The song was originally recorded by and released as a single in November 1953 by James Crawford as "Sugar Boy and his Cane Cutters", on Checker Records (Checker 787). The single features Dave Lastie on tenor saxophone. Crawford's version of the song did not make the charts. The story tells of a "spy boy" (i.e. a lookout for one band of Indians) encountering the "flag boy" or guidon carrier for another "tribe". He threatens to "set the flag on fire". Crawford set phrases chanted by Mardi Gras Indians to music for the song. Crawford himself states that he has no idea what the words mean, and that he originally sang the phrase "Chock-a-mo", but the title was misheard by Chess Records and Checker Records president Leonard Chess, who misspelled it as "Jock-a-mo" for the record's release.
"Sugar Boy" Crawford's story
James "Sugar Boy" Crawford, gave a 2002 interview with OffBeat Magazine discussing the song's meaning:
Interviewer: How did you construct 'Jock-A-Mo?'
Crawford: It came from two Indian chants that I put music to. “Iko Iko” was like a victory chant that the Indians would shout. “Jock-A-Mo” was a chant that was called when the Indians went into battle. I just put them together and made a song out of them. Really it was just like "Lawdy Miss Clawdy". That was a phrase everybody in New Orleans used. Lloyd Price just added music to it and it became a hit. I was just trying to write a catchy song....
Interviewer: Listeners wonder what 'Jock-A-Mo' means. Some music scholars say it translates in Mardi Gras Indian lingo as 'Kiss my ass,' and I’ve read where some think 'Jock-A-Mo' was a court jester. What does it mean?
Crawford: I really don't know. (laughs)
Background
The Dixie Cups version was the result of an unplanned jam in a New York City recording studio where they began an impromptu version of "Iko Iko", accompanying themselves with drumsticks on an aluminum chair, a studio ashtray and a Coke bottle. After their producers cleaned up the track and added the backup vocals, bass and drums to the song, the single was then released in March 1965. The Dixie Cups scored an international hit single with "Iko Iko" in May 1965 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart where their version peaked at number 20 and spent 10 weeks on the Top 100. The song also charted at number 23 on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at number 20 on the R&B Chart. In Canada "Iko Iko" reached number 26 on the RPM Chart. It was the third single taken from their debut studio album Chapel of Love issued on Red Bird Records in August 1964.
The Dixie Cups had learned "Iko, Iko" from hearing the Hawkins sisters' grandmother sing it, but they knew little about the origin of the song and so the original authorship credit went to the members, Barbara Ann Hawkins, her sister Rosa Lee Hawkins, and their cousin Joan Marie Johnson.
The Dixie Cups' version was later included on the soundtrack to the 1987 film The Big Easy. This same version was also used on the soundtrack of the 2005 movie The Skeleton Key. In 2009, a version based on The Dixie Cups' was used in an ad for Lipton Rainforest Alliance Ice Tea.
Legal battles
After the Dixie Cups version of "Iko Iko" was a hit in 1965, they and their record label, Red Bird Records, were sued by James Crawford, who claimed that "Iko Iko" was the same as his composition "Jock-a-mo". Although The Dixie Cups denied that the two compositions were similar, the lawsuit resulted in a settlement in 1967 with Crawford making no claim to authorship or ownership of "Iko Iko", but being credited 25% for public performances, such as on radio, of "Iko Iko" in the United States. Even though a back-to-back listening of the two recordings clearly demonstrates that "Iko Iko" was practically the same song as Crawford's "Jock-a-mo", Crawford's rationale for the settlement was motivated by years of legal battles with no royalties. In the end, he stated, "I don’t even know if I really am getting my just dues. I just figure 50 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing."
In the 1990s, the Dixie Cups became aware that another group of people were claiming authorship of "Iko Iko". Their ex-manager Joe Jones and his family filed a copyright registration in 1991, alleging that they wrote the song in 1963. Joe Jones successfully licensed "Iko Iko" outside of North America. The Dixie Cups filed a lawsuit against Joe Jones. The trial took place in New Orleans and the Dixie Cups were represented by well-known music attorney Oren Warshavsky before Senior Federal Judge Peter Beer. The jury returned a unanimous verdict on March 6, 2002, affirming that the Dixie Cups were the only writers of "Iko Iko" and granting them more money than they were seeking. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the jury verdict and sanctioned Joe Jones.
Background
New Orleans singer and pianist Dr. John covered "Iko Iko" in 1972 for his fifth studio album Dr. John's Gumbo. Released as a single in March 1972 on Atco Records, his version of the song charted at number 71 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was produced by Jerry Wexler and Harold Battiste. The following is the "Iko Iko" story, as told by Dr. John in the liner notes to his 1972 album, Dr. John's Gumbo, in which he covers New Orleans R&B classics:
The song was written and recorded back in the early 1950s by a New Orleans singer named James Crawford who worked under the name of Sugar Boy & the Cane Cutters. It was recorded in the 1960s by the Dixie Cups for Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller's Red Bird Records, but the format we're following here is Sugar Boy's original. Also in the group were Professor Longhair on piano, Jake Myles, Big Boy Myles, Irv Bannister on guitar, and Eugene 'Bones' Jones on drums. The group was also known as the Chipaka Shaweez. The song was originally called 'Jockamo,' and it has a lot of Creole patois in it. Jockamo means 'jester' in the old myth. It is Mardi Gras music, and the Shaweez was one of many Mardi Gras groups who dressed up in far out Indian costumes and came on as Indian tribes. The tribes used to hang out on Claiborne Avenue and used to get juiced up there getting ready to perform and 'second line' in their own special style during Mardi Gras. That's dead and gone because there's a freeway where those grounds used to be. The tribes were like social clubs who lived all year for Mardi Gras, getting their costumes together. Many of them were musicians, gamblers, hustlers and pimps.
The song was performed by Dr. John during halftime of the 2008 NBA All-Star Game in New Orleans and again in 2014.
Background
The most successful charting version in the UK was recorded by the Scottish singer Natasha, whose version reached number 10 on the UK singles chart in 1982. The song also charted highly in Ireland and New Zealand. The single was produced by Tom Newman. A remix of the single was released in 2007, and Natasha's version enjoyed a resurgence in 2014 when it was included on the soundtrack to the highest-grossing Italian film of 2014, Un Boss In Salotto.
Background
In 1989, the British girl group the Belle Stars had a US chart hit with their cover of "Iko Iko" which reached number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in March, after it was included on the soundtrack of the film Rain Man, starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. The single was issued on Capitol Records. Their song is in the opening scene of the 1988 film.
It was originally released several years earlier on Stiff Records in 1982 as a single in the UK where it peaked at a modest number 35 on the UK Singles Chart in June 1982. The track was produced by Brian Tench and was also featured on the band's eponymous debut album, The Belle Stars which reached number 15 on the UK Albums Chart.
The Belle Stars version was also included in the 1997 film Knockin' on Heaven's Door, K-9 and The Hangover in 2009. The Belle Stars' version of "Iko Iko" is used in a trailer for 20th Century Fox Family Features.
Background
The German Eurodance act Captain Jack recorded a cover version of "Iko Iko" for their fourth studio album, Top Secret in 2001. It was released on E-Park Records. The single was produced by Udo Niebergall and Eric Sneo. Captain Jack's version was a hit in several countries, reaching number 22 in Germany, number 62 in Switzerland and peaking at number 16 in Austria.
Other versions
Linguistic origins
Linguists and historians have proposed a variety of origins for the seemingly nonsensical chorus, suggesting that the words may come from a melange of cultures.
According to linguist Geoffrey D. Kimball, the lyrics of the song are derived in part from Mobilian Jargon, an extinct American Indian trade language consisting mostly of Choctaw and Chickasaw words and once used by Southeastern American Indians, Blacks, and European settlers and their descendants in the Gulf Coast Region. In Mobilian Jargon, čokəma fehna (interpreted as "jockomo feeno") was a commonly used phrase, meaning "very good".
A translation of Louisiana Creole French interprets the words of the entire chorus as;
Ena! Ena!
Akout, akout, an déyè
Chaque amour fi nou wa na né
In English, this equates to:
Hey now! Hey now!
Listen, listen at the back
All our love made our king be born
Another possible translation interprets the third and fourth lines as:
Chokma finha an dan déyè
From Chickasaw words "chokma" ("it's good") and "finha" ("very"), the Creole "an dan déyè" from the French Creole "an dans déyè" ("at the back"), and the Creole "ane" from the French "année" ("year").
In English, this equates to:
It's very good at the rear
In a 2009 Offbeat article, however, the Ghanaian social linguist Dr. Evershed Amuzu said the chorus was "definitely West African", reflecting West African tonal patterns. The article also notes that the phrase ayeko—often doubled as ayeko, ayeko—is a popular chant meaning "well done, or congratulations" among the Akan and Ewe people in modern-day Togo, Ghana, and Benin. Both groups were heavily traded during the slave trade, often to Haiti, which served as a way station for Louisiana. Ewes in particular are credited with bringing West African cultural influences like West African Vodun rites from West Africa to Haiti and on to New Orleans.
Musicologist Ned Sublette has backed the idea that the chorus might have roots in Haitian slave culture, considering that the rhythms of Mardi Gras Indians are nearly indistinguishable from the Haitian Kata rhythm. Yaquimo, he has also noted, was a common name among Taino people, who inhabited Haiti in the early years of the slave trade. "Jakamo Fi Na Ye" is also, whether coincidentally or not, the phrase "The black cat is here" in Bambara, a West African Mandingo language.
In a 1991 lecture to the New Orleans Social Science History Association, Dr. Sybil Kein proposed the following translation from Yoruba and Creole:
Code language!
God is watching
Jacouman causes it; we will be emancipated
Voodoo practitioners would recognize many aspects of the song as being about spirit possession. The practitioner, the horse, waves a flag representing a certain god to literally flag down that god into himself or herself. Setting a flag on fire is a way of cursing someone. The song also mentions a man dressed in green who either has a change in personality or is in some way not what he seems to be. That would be recognized in Voodoo as a person being possessed by a spirit from the peaceful Rada realm who has a preference for green clothes and has love magic or fertility as their tell-tale characteristics. The man in the song who is dressed in red, and who is being sent after someone to kill them, would likely be a person possessed by a spirit from the vengeful Petwo realm who has a preference for red clothing and who has revenge or some other destructive quality among their characteristics. The relationship of the song to voodoo practices is celebrated in the movie The Skeleton Key, whose plot revolves around the practice of Hoodoo (folk magic).