Photo from YouTube/Big Boy’s Neighborhood.
Sheck Wes “Mo Bamba” made the Harlem rapper a breakout star. But while most people know about its namesake, Orlando Magic center and Mo Bamba, a childhood friend of Sheck, he revealed that the track is also a tribute to Senegalese religious leader Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba.
“Mo Bamba himself, the individual, the basketball player, he’s always been intriguing to me because of his name: Mohamed Bomba. In Africa where I was, ‘Bamba’ was the saint,” Wes explained. “The guy who built the religious city [where I was], his name is Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba. That’s who my mom named me after, that’s why everyone called me ‘Sheck’ or ‘Sheikh.’”
Sheck’s mother sent him to Touba, Senegal, a highly religious city with ties to the Sufi sect of Islam in June 2016 because she wanted to get him out of New York. Sheikh Ahmadou Bamba brought the Mouride brotherhood, a branch of Sufi Islam, to Touba, and engaged in non-violent protest against the French who occupied Senegal in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
“Africa was a big place that was colonized, and the French people tried to wipe out Islam,” Sheck said. “Bamba was the one person who stood up against the French people and liberated West Africa to still have Islam there.”
Bamba also founded The International Sufi School, with the goal of spreading his message of peace and service. He died in 1927.
In a 2018 interview with The FADER, Sheck talked about how his time in Touba strengthened his faith.
“I practice Islam. I was always into that, my whole life. I always believed in a higher power,” he said. “But they solidified my belief.”
He revealed in the Big Boy interview that he felt some conflict about making a profane song named after an Islamic saint, saying:
I really tripped over the lyrics, because I used to be like, ‘Man, this song is explicit.’ But in reality, deep down, I’ve got an attachment to the song because of who I named it after—I named it after more than just Mo Bamba, because ‘Mo Bamba’ to me is like, ‘More Bamba.’ In my mind it’s like more of Bamba, and Bamba is the saint. He left a lot of teaching and learnings in West Africa and those were the things that I was reading when I was there.
On “Chippi Chippi,” Wes used his name, which is also commonly spelled “Cheikh” and translates to “A man respected for his piety or religious learning,” to taunt lesser rappers. He says:
Sheck mean teacher, all these bitch ass niggas students
I get high like Ali Ba, then I Chippi Chippi (Chill)
These fuck niggas ain’t really fuckin' with me (Okay)
Sheck further expounded on the meaning of “Mo Bamba” in an episode of Genius' series Verified.
Read the full lyrics to “Mo Bamba” and the rest of Sheck Wes' discography on Genius now.
