Usually a famous sample gets used over and over again by a range of artists, but occasionally, multiple samples from the same track find their way into very different tracks by other people. Take Rock Master Scott & The Dynamic Three’s classic hip hop track from 1984: The Roof is on Fire.

If I say “the roof is on fire” you’ll either chant along with the original, sing the mopey version in Fire Water Burn by the Bloodhound Gang from 1997, bounce to the 1998 song “Follow the Leader” by the Soca Boys, remember you danced to the 1989 dance track The roof is on fire by Westbam (which features a ton of other samples too), you may have headbanged to Sway by Coal Chamber from 1997 or if you’re really hardcore you remember Atari Teenage Riot using the lyrics in their 1999 track Anarchy 999. That or you heard the lines “the roof is on fire, we don’t need the water, let the motherfucker burn” in any other song that the Wiki article on the song mentions.

And that’s kinda ironic, since The Roof Is On Fire was actually the B-side of the single that was intended as a hit song: Request Line. You may recognise the intro to that track as the same as that to Missy Elliot’s Work It from 2002. Somehow the simple but effective lyrics of the B-side found its way into pop culture and became just as standard for MC’s as “put your hands up for Detroit“.

Even more ironic is the odd’s you will know yet another sample from The Roof is on Fire even though it completely ignores the famous lyrics involving lack of a fire department. Hey Girl Hey Boy by the Chemical Brothers from 1999 directly samples the opening of this original version of The Roof is on Fire.
So hey girls and hey boys, we don’t need no water despite that The Roof is on Fire: