Robbed hit of the week 4/19/21 - Salt-N-Pepa's Gitty Up...

 

 

"Gitty Up" - Salt N Pepa

from the album Brand New (1997)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #50 

 

This week's "robbed hit" comes from the female rap icons Salt-N-Pepa, who had reached the pop top-40 for what would end up being their most recent time in the autumn of 1995 with "Ain't Nothin' But A She Thing" from a benefit compilation.  After a separation from their label Next Plateau and longtime producer (and Cheryl "Salt" James' ex) Herbie Azor, Salt, Sandra "Pepa" Denton, and DJ Deidra "Spinderella" Roper returned in 1997 with their fifth (and so far last) studio album Brand New on Red Ant Records. The first song promoted to radio, "R U Ready", wasn't released as a commercial single, but managed to climb to #26 on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay chart, and #61 on the airplay component of the pop Hot 100 list. For the second offering and first commercial single from the set, the women put out "Gitty Up". Lifting the bass from Rick James' "Give It To Me Baby", the party record has them adopting the western motif decades before Lil Nas X. Rufus Blaq is the male rapper on this video, though he does get credit on the label...

While "Gitty Up" climbed to #31 on Billboard's R&B chart, the song stalled smack dab in the middle of the pop Hot 100 tally in May of 1998. Internationally, the initial single went to #22 in New Zealand. The Brand New album got to #37 on the Billboard 200 sales list, and #16 on the R&B-specific chart. The trio split before releasing any new music, though Salt and Pepa have reunited for performances.

(4/10)

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In 1999, with the release of their Best of compilation, a remixed version of "Gitty Up" that swaps out the bass line from Rick James for Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall", gave the song new life internationally, where it went to #4 in New Zealand, and made the top-40 in Australia (#16) and the UK (#22) under the weird title "The Brick Track vs. Gitty Up"...

Here they are appearing on the Chris Rock Show...

And finally, at a benefit concert...