Elderly School Rap fans, help a girl out

Cafe Society
1

As happens to me very often these days, I woke up with a snippet of lyrics in my head:
She went to the city
And go so, so, so siddity

Took me a while to place them since The Googles did not help. It’s from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s The Message. And the reason The Googles didn’t help is because they think she went to the city and got so dizzy.

Now I’m wondering if I’ve sang it wrong all these years or if ‘siddity’ is such a black experience word, the internet lyric sites just went with the word they know.

Now, no offense, but the SDMB is mighty white-- that’s just the facts, not a dig-- but also there are enough oldies here that old school (OK, geriatric) rap may be up someone’s alley. Who is right, me or the internet?

P.S. Siddity means stuck up.

2

It does sound like “siddity”

Ive found several instances of internet lyrics being wrong - and for common words even not slang.
Damned if i can remember them.

Siddity it is - if your definition is right.

3

I think you got it wrong. The whole rhyme provides the context:

So she can tell the stories to the girls back home
She went to the city and got so, so, so dizzy
She had to get a pimp, she couldn’t make it on her own

Inexperienced girl goes to the big city, gets caught up and confused with the urban life, and gets snared by a pimp. Going to the city and getting bougie about it doesn’t make any sense in context with the following verse.

4

Ah -i googled god save the queen by the sex pistols
And the first hit has

and There’s no future
And England’s dreaming

When clearly it is

IN England’s Dreaming

Extrapolating : Internet lyrics suck ass

5

“Dizzy” sounds rubbish though

Or was it an early 80s black new york adjective ?

6

I can hear that, but no way can I hear dizzy, unless it’s a pronunciation of dizzy (specific to that time and that culture?) that I haven’t heard before.

My personal example of awful internet lyrics - and I’ve never seen the internet get this right - is from Reverend Black Grape by Black Grape

We are the chi chine tribe
And we are over friendly

The what?? You google “chi chine” and you’ll find yourself looking at internet lyrics for Reverend Black Grape for the most part.

We are the TEA TIME tribe, for gods sake!

…mumble mumble mumble…

j

7

I’d say he’s saying “so so siddity” or “social security”. I always heard it as “social security”, but I had never heard the term “siddity” before.

8

I have no familiarity with the song, but listening to it on YouTube, I cannot hear any Zs in the word. It’s very clearly a “soft D.”

9

I think she went to the city because she was siddity and then got turned out because the city don’t fuck with siddity. That’s how I always thought it, anyway.

10

I checked the first three lyrics sites that Google returned, one each for “dizzy”, “saditty”, and “social security”.

11

Hmm that’s a reasonable argument. One way to find out could be to find an LP of the album, hopefully with lyrics in the liner notes. That’s as close to going to the source as we’re going to get short of asking the man himself!

12

Of those three, Social Security makes the least sense!

13

I looked for images of that, but no luck so far. I don’t think I owned that one.

Those notes don’t always help. In the song Girl by Beck, he is saying “that sun-eyed girl” or “that cyanide girl” or “that sunny girl”. Took a look at the liner notes and it has “that ___ girl”

Well, that’s what this white guy heard back then, having never heard “siditty”. I really don’t hear “dizzy”.

14

Found one liner note that agrees with Biggirl! Although they spelled it “wrong”.

From a 1982 12" vinyl single release (UK).

15

Plus, he definitely says “so” twice. Anyway, looks like @Biggirl got it right!

16

I also learned that the song was written by Mellie Mel and Ed Fletcher. Sylvia Robinson just got Grandmaster Flash to rap it.

17

Does this make any sense in context?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/saditty

18

I just want to chime in that I freaking love this rap song. One of my favorite classics.

The only one I like better is Rapper’s Delight as done by the Swedish Chef.

19

Ummm. No. All rapping on the track is by Melle Mel and Fletcher a.k.a. Duke Bootee, who wasn’t even part of the group. Flash was a DJ, not a rapper.

In early hip-hop all the way to the 90’s, the DJ was the star, the rapper was the MC, which is obvious from the order they were billed: DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Eric B. & Rakim ASF. Flash (born Joseph Sadler) didn’t want anything to do with it. The only one from the F5 who went along was Mel. The rest thought it too slow and not something that would get people dancing.

20

She had to check herself before she wrecked herself?