Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a savage fight.

1929

‘Max Brand’ Rustlers of Beacon Creek (1935) 208: ‘We’ll bucket ’em to pieces without no trouble at all.’ ‘It’ll be a barbecue.’.

2. (US black) the female genitals.

1935

L. Bogan ‘Barbecue Bess’ 🎵 Talkin’ ’bout my barbecue, only thing I sell, / And if you want my meat. / You gotta come to my house at twelve.

3. (US black, also barbeque) an attractive woman, esp. one who enjoys or offers oral sex [such a woman is a ‘hot piece of meat’; ? a precursor of modern spit roast under spit n.¹ ].

1927		Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five [song title] Struttin’ with Some Barbecue.
1944		Cab Calloway New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 253: barbecue (n.): the girl friend, a beauty.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1961		C. Bingham Run Tough, Run Hard n.p.: I don’t think I particularly enjoyed your role the night of the party, either, if you want the honest truth about it, Brad Dixon! Strutting off with that blond barbeque the minute you set foot in the house!

4. (US prison, also barbeque) the murder of a fellow-inmate by tossing a Molotov cocktail or petrol bomb into their cell.

1992

Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 89: Barbeque also Torch ’Em Burning an inmate by throwing a Molotov cocktail into his cell.