O.P.P. (song)

"O.P.P." is a 1991 song recorded by rap group Naughty by Nature. The song made it to the US Top Ten, propelling their debut album to platinum status. The song's declaration "Down Wit' OPP" was a popular catchphrase in the U.S. in the early-'90s. Its beat is sampled from Jackson 5's "ABC" and Berry Gordy, Jr. got a writing credit for the song.

The song was one of the first rap songs to become a pop hit when it reached number 6 in the US and number 35 in the UK in 1991. MTV picked up on its video, and it got heavy airplay on Yo! MTV Raps that year, inspiring a remake of the song as "Down Wit' MTV."

The title is an abbreviation for "other people's property", and when the song asks the listener if they're "Down with O.P.P.", it is asking the listener if he/she is willing to have sexual relations with a person who is known to already have a boyfriend or girlfriend ("O.P.P"). Lead rapper Treach coyly obscures the meaning of the "P" using euphemisms throughout the song saying - instead of pussy - that it's "another way to call a cat a kitten" or - instead of penis - a "five-letter word rhyming with cleanest or meanest". In the lyrics following, the rap defines the last "P" as "property" to "do it sorta properly."

Treach was inspired to write the lyrics by a drug dealer in his former neighborhood who used to move in on other dealers' territories and say he was "Down With O.P.M. - Other People's Money." Treach took a liking to the phrase but decided to remove the "M" and add a second "P" instead.

They gave the song a broader appeal by making the lyrics accessible to both male and female listeners, which is done by including male and female genitalia in the abbreviation "OPP".

[edit] Pop culture references

O.P.P. was parodied in the song Entropy by Ken Leavitt-Lawrence under his fictional rapper persona MC Hawking.

O.P.P. was mentioned in the song 'While I Was Asleep' by Dead Celebrity Status in the line: "Touching other people's property, obviously you're down with O.P.P." relating to a girlfriend cheating on her boyfriend.

O.P.P. was used in an episode of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when Will gets a car in season 2 episode 9 and again when his mother's boyfriends daughter talks about wanting Will's bracelet from a friend. When he tells her it's not his she says, "That's cool. I'm not down with OPP anyways."

The song was mentioned in Malibu's Most Wanted.

A RoboCop-themed parody of the song (with the chorus changed to "You down wit' OCP?") appeared in a skit on the TV show Meltdown.

In 2006, a parody of the song was used to advertise the USA Network television series Monk: replacing O.P.P. with O.C.D. (obsessive-compulsive disorder), a psychiatric disorder of the title character, Adrian Monk.

Referenced in Rage Against the Machine's song "Without a Face", with the chorus line modified to "You down with DDT? Yeah, you know me".

The song features in the film Jarhead, released in 2005. The song is used during a Christmas Eve celebration in 1990, 9 months before the release date of the song.

In the Toni Braxton song "Love Affair", which is about a woman resisting cheating on her boyfriend, Braxton sings that she "isn't down with O.P.P.".

Ghostface Killah used the phrase to describe a young man attempting to have numerous sexual partners, in the Wu-Tang Clan song "Tearz".

It is also referenced in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. In the last sequence during the performance of "Joyful Joyful" the students sing "You down wit' G.O.D?"

In Season Two of The Office, episode "The Dundies", Michael sings a parody of O.P.P called "The Dundies." He then talks about how he has listened to the song many times and still does not know what the second "P" stands for.

Comedy music duo Flight Of The Conchords made reference to the song in Season 1, Episode 7 'Drive By'. The two sing a song titled 'Mother Uckers' - stating the lyric 'Cause out on A.P / On AP / Yeah, you know me'.

[edit] Chart performance

Chart	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	6
U.S. Hot Rap Singles	1
U.S. Hot R&B/Hip Hop Singles & Tracks	5
U.S. Hot Dance Music/Club Play	7
U.S. Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales	1
UK Singles Chart	35