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In middle school, an older female cousin asked if I knew what O.P.P. meant. I admitted I didn’t. “Other people’s privates,” she said. “OK,” I said, still unclear about it. How did one come to be “down with O.P.P.” exactly? Was it cool or shameful? Had the acronym been in circulation before the song came out, or did Naughty by Nature make it up? I’m still a little fuzzy on O.P.P., but it’s exciting that Naughty by Nature is playing again.
There’s always been a positive if mischievous message in their music. In a way, they’re the male equivalent of Salt-N-Pepa, whose Very Necessary (“Shoop,” “None of Your Business”) was released the same year as 19 Naughty III (“Hip Hop Hooray”). The album cover shows Treach holding a giant, redwood-worthy chain saw, but as a kind of joke; it’s not like he’d use it. Treach remains a charming and mesmerizing performer. Since the release of Naughty by Nature’s last album, Ilcons (2002), he has had a fairly successful acting career, appearing on Oz, Law and Order, and The Sopranos. At a recent New York show, he declared defiantly, “Until they kill me, they gonna feel me.” But it’s hard to believe anybody would want to kill him.
