What language is spoken at the beginning of "Let Me Ride" by Dr. Dre?

Cafe Society
1

Pretty straight forward.

For the album version at least, before the music starts, a woman is speaking in a language that (to my totally untrained ears) might be Swahili. Can anyone confirm the language?

2

I believe that’s English, specifically some kind of Caribbean dialect, possibly Jamaican.

3

Youtube link to the recording – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_ejSOsr08Y

4

Another vote for a Caribbean dialect of English, possibly using some local words. I could definitely clearly make out “So Andrea, tell ‘em where the fuck I’m goin’, ya?” at the end.

5

Probably some variation of Dre rather than Andrea, but, yeah.

6

Excellent Username:Post combination, btw. :cool:

7

Dre’s real first name is Andre, which is even more likely.

8

Any Caribbeans on the board who can translate?

9

It’s Jamaican patois. She’s saying something along the lines of:

What’s up baby ? You look good in your car. Long time I’ve been eyeing you and I want to talk to you but you look at me like you don’t want to talk to me. So what’s good Dre ? Tell them what the fuck is going on.

10

“Eeeeh whappn no baby
You look good ina ya car eeh
Longtime mi watch ya mi whaa chat to ya
And ya a gwaan like ya nuh wha chat to me
So whappn Dre tell me whe di fuck a gwaan nuh!”

11

The wiki page on jamaican patois is quite interesting.
…and funny. It’s probably not right to find some of the patois versions amusing, but I can’t help it.

12

Thank you guys so much, it’s been in the back of my head to figure this out for 20 years! I actually submitted @elfkin447’s version to the lyrics site he linked to, giving them a link to this thread as a reference. Who knows if it will actually get updated though. This was fun.

13

Wow, I’ve been wondering this for years, as well. Cheers

14

Moved to Cafe Society.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator