Composition
The song samples the Sister Sledge song "He's the Greatest Dancer" and The Bar-Kays song "Sang and Dance". The line "since I moved up like George and Weezie" is a reference to the TV show The Jeffersons as well as the show's theme song, "Movin' On Up" by Ja'net Dubois. The "mama-uh, mama-uh, mama come closer" line is a reference to the song Soul Makossa by Manu Dibango, specifically the version adapted by Michael Jackson in Wanna Be Startin' Somethin''s final bridge. The connotations associated with the expression getting jiggy were heavily influenced by this single. The term went from being used to acclaim one's fashion or style towards being synonymous with dancing, and eventually back to the original association with sexual connotations. Will Smith has attested in an interview that his inspiration to alter the meaning for the purpose of the song came from his association of the term "jiggy" with "jigaboo", a derogatory term for African-Americans, which made the literal meaning of the title "getting African-American with it" and which was meant to reference the popular folk-myth of an innate sense of rhythm in black folks. The co-opting of a once offensive word also was racially empowering.
The song was also sampled by a Russian pop group Hi-Fi in their 1999 song "Pro Leto" (translated as "About Summer").
Read more about this topic: Gettin' Jiggy Wit It
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