Daily Archives: May 1, 2026

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): Special Mention (Funk) (7) Naughty by Nature – O.P.P.

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(7) NAUGHTY BY NATURE –

O.P.P. (1991)

 

“Arm me with harmony”

To quote Wikipedia, “O.P.P. is a song by American rap group Naughty by Nature. It was released in August 1991 as the lead single from their self-titled debut album Naughty by Nature. The song was one of the first rap songs…Its declaration, “Down Wit’ O.P.P” was a popular catchphrase in the United States in the early-1990s. It was a hugely successful single…There was not a bigger, more contagious crossover radio smash in the autumn of 1991 than Naughty by Nature’s O.P.P.”

Not to mention it samples the Jackson Five and it doesn’t get much funkier than that. Of course, those lyrics (and video) are a little naughty by nature. Since then it has ranked in lists for greatest songs or singles of rap or hip hop – and playing on those initials has a special resonance for me. (You down with DPP? It’s an inside joke)

“You down with OPP? Yeah you know me”

 

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Top Tens – Fantasy & SF: Top 10 SF Books (Special Mention) (15) Dan Simmons – Ilium & Olympos

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(15) DAN SIMMONS –

ILIUM & OLYMPOS (2003-2005)

Where to start with this genre-crossing author, spanning fantasy, horror and SF?

There’s where it all started – with his 1986 World Fantasy Award winning novel The Song of Kali, a psychological horror about a journalist encountering a latter day cult of Kali. Or his other horror themed works – or perhaps his dark fantasy Summer of Night, reminiscent of Stephen King with its group of adolescent boys facing a supernatural terror with a long history behind it, or his take on psychic vampires in Carrion Comfort.

However, it’s his towering SF classics which earn him special mention. The Hyperion Cantos was a close call for this entry with its frame story, modelled on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and its diverse group of ‘pilgrims’ to the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion, sent by the galactic Hegemony and the Church of the Final Atonement to face the terrifying Shrike.

But really, it’s his other towering SF classic in two parts, Ilium and Olympos, that seals the deal here. What can I say – I’m a sucker for the Iliad and the Trojan War. How can I resist an SF duology in which the Trojan War is reenacted by post-humans posing as the Olympian gods on a terraformed Mars around – where else? – Mons Olympus.

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