Naughty By Nature

Naughty by Nature managed the clever feat of placing massive, instantly memorable anthems on mainstream pop charts while retaining genuine respect from dedicated rap audiences, emerging as one of the earliest acts to navigate that divide successfully. The trio came together in East Orange, New Jersey, during 1986, when MCs Treach (born Anthony Criss) and Vinnie (born Vincent Brown) along with DJ Kay Gee (born Keir Gist) were still sharing the same high school. Originally performing under the name New Style, they honed their craft at local talent shows until Queen Latifah discovered them a few years afterward; she placed the group under her management and secured a recording contract with Tommy Boy Records. Their self-titled debut arrived in 1991 and yielded the inescapable Top Ten single “O.P.P.,” said to abbreviate “other people’s property,” although the lyrics clarified that the second P alluded to male or female genitals. “O.P.P.” propelled Naughty by Nature into crossover visibility, yet their raw ghetto perspective, hard-edged street funk, and Treach’s agile delivery also earned them strong support within the hip-hop underground. Treach launched a parallel acting path in 1992 with a part in Juice and later took on supporting roles in films such as The Meteor Man, Who’s the Man?, and Jason’s Lyric.

The group duplicated that achievement on the 1993 follow-up, 19 Naughty III, which featured the pervasive crossover hit “Hip Hop Hooray” built around its signature “hey! ho!” chant; the album climbed to the Top Five and earned platinum certification just as its predecessor had. Poverty’s Paradise, issued in 1995, marked their final Tommy Boy release; although it lacked any large-scale singles, the project received the Grammy for Best Rap Album. Several years of recording inactivity ensued, during which Treach concentrated on acting, notably securing a recurring role on the HBO series Oz, while Kay Gee broadened his production credits with work for Zhané, Aaliyah, Krayzie Bone, and Next. The members also drew attention away from the studio: Treach and Vinnie faced arrest in Harlem during 1997 on illegal weapons charges, and in 1999 Treach wed Pepa of Salt-N-Pepa, a marriage that ended two years later. That same year Naughty by Nature resurfaced on Arista with the album 19 Naughty Nine: Nature’s Fury. The track “Jamboree,” which featured Zhané, achieved notable chart success, yet Kay Gee soon exited to focus exclusively on production. Treach and Vinnie then signed with TVT, releasing the first album recorded as a duo, IIcons, in early 2002. Activity tapered during the latter half of the 2000s, but reports surfaced in 2011 that the group was preparing a comeback project titled Anthem Inc.