Cover Versions and Uses in Pop Culture
"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" has been covered and sampled by multiple recording artists since its release.
- Jackson's elder sister, La Toya, has frequently covered the song. She used it to open her set at 1993's Sopot Song Festival, on MDR in the 1990s, and on the sixth season of the United Kingdom television show Celebrity Big Brother in 2009.
- The song appeared in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, where it appeared on the playlist for the fictional radio station, Fever 105.
- Rihanna sampled the songs ending chant (which is the Manu Dibango coda "mama-se, mama-sa, mama-ku-sa") in her single "Don't Stop the Music" from her third studio album Good Girl Gone Bad (2007).
- One week after Jackson's death, musician Madonna used that song as part a medley of Jackson's songs as a tribute, during her second leg of her Sticky & Sweet Tour in July 2009. Also a dancer impersonating Jackson, performing his signature moves, like spinning, moonwalking and gyrating.
- Pop singer, Whitney Houston, performed '"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" as the opening selection throughout her Greatest Love World Tour, which ran from July to December 1986. In February 2010, she again performed the song, along with Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel", during her I Look to You Tour.
- Björk has been known to use an interpolation of the song while performing her own song "I Go Humble" on stage.
- The "mama-se mama-sa mama-ku-sa" line is used in the first verse of "You See Me" by Childish Gambino and in "Lost in the World" by Kanye West.
- Glee used it as the opening song in its "Michael" episode (2012). This cover debuted and peaked at Number 78 at Billboard Hot 100, Number 46 at Billboard Digital Songs, and Number 88 at Billboard Canadian Hot 100 chart at the week of February 18, 2012.
- In the Black Dynamite episode "Just Beat It or Jackson Five Across Yo' Eyes", Mama-se Mama-sa Mama-ku-sa is the name of the alien species that Michael Jackson is revealed to belong to.
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