O.P.P. (song)
"O.P.P." is a song by American hip hop group Naughty by Nature, released in August 1991 by Tommy Boy as the lead single from the group's self-titled second album, Naughty by Nature (1991). It was one of the first rap songs to become a pop hit when it reached No. 6 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 35 on the UK Singles Chart. Rodd Houston and Marcus Raboy directed the music video for the song. Its declaration, "Down wit' O.P.P", was a popular catchphrase in the US in the early 1990s. The song was a hugely successful single; Spin magazine named it one of the greatest singles of the 1990s, offering a brief verdict with the rhetorical question, "Ever wonder where Puffy came from?" It also made some media outlets' lists of one of the best rap songs of all time: including The Source, VH1 (No. 22), and Rolling Stone (No. 80). The song was also ranked No. 20 in VH1's "40 Greatest Hip Hop Songs of the '90s" in 2012 and No. 96 in Billboard magazine's "500 Best Pop Songs of All Time" in 2023. Content The song samples Melvin Bliss' "Synthetic Substitution" and The Jackson 5's "ABC". Its lyrics concern sexual infidelity, with "O.P.P." standing for "other people's pussy" and "other people's penis". Treach told in an interview with New York Times, "'O.P.P.' is about crazy messing with other people's girls. Everybody knows about that, girls messing, guys messing, you know the bit. It goes on, so everybody could relate, the fellas and the girls, and it's got a hook for the party and everybody can crazy groove to it." Critical reception Upon the single release, Larry Flick from Billboard remarked that here, the act drops samples of the Jackson Five's "ABC" onto "a rousing hip-hop beat-base. Anthemic rhymes are icing on the cake. Have a taste." James Bernard from Entertainment Weekly described it as "a sly, body-rocking tune with a melodic pop hook and plenty of cute double entendres". Dennis Hunt from Los Angeles Times viewed it as a "lively, lewd hit single", "which is cleverly constructed on the framework of the Jackson 5’s bubble-gum soul classic". David Bennun from Melody Maker called it "a genitally-fixated rap on the joys of infidelity". A reviewer from Music & Media felt "It's further proof of the new direction in rap heading more towards a normal pop song. The combination of the piano hook and the female backup makes this funky rhyme memorable." Peter Watrous from New York Times wrote, "There are a couple of signs that "O.P.P.", an old-fashioned cheating song by Naughty by Nature [...] is shaping up as one of the summer's hits on local streets. The first indication is the sound of "O.P.P" coming from the back of Jeeps; the second is that bootleg T-shirts advertising the band—Trech (Trech Criss), Vin Rock (Vinnie Brown) and Kay Gee (Keir Gist) -- are being sold all over lower Manhattan." Johnny Lee from Smash Hits declared the