"O.P.P." is a 1991 song recorded by rap group Naughty by Nature. The song made it to the US Top Ten (peaking at #6), propelling their self titled album Naughty by Nature 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" in which Alphonzo Mizell, Freddie Perren, Deke Richards, and Berry Gordy Jr. got a writing credit for the song. It was a hugely successful single, as Allmusic described "There was not a bigger, more contagious crossover radio smash in the autumn of 1991 than Naughty by Nature's "O.P.P."

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 acronym 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 second "P" (which is meant to refer to either "pussy" or "penis") using euphemisms throughout the song saying - instead of pussy - that it is "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 second "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."

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".

In 1998 the song was named one of the 100 best rap singles by The Source

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.
• At The Jackson's reunion at MSG during the song ABC Randy shouts out "you down with O.P.P." when Michael tries to stop him he pushes him away and they continue singing.
• 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, only to result in contracting HIV 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'.
• In an episode of In Living Color, there is a skit featuring Steve Park as an Asian restaurateur singing a rap song parodying O.P.P. called "You Down with M.S.G."
• Referenced to in Gears of War. There is an achievement called 'You Down With E.P.I.C?', referring to the game's developer, Epic Games. *In Kris Kross's hit song "Jump" (which Treach wrote), Daddy Mac says: the D-A-double D-Y-M-A-C, Yea you know me (a line both the men and woman in the O.P.P video say)."
• The book titled "Other People's Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop In White America" by Jason Tanz is in reference to the song by artists Naughty By Nature. It also makes numerous other references to the group throughout the book itself.

Chart performance

References