Question 1

What does “broccoli” mean?

Accepted Answer

Weed. Named for the way a cured bud looks — green, dense, bushy. E-40 had it on record in 1993, twenty-three years before the internet decided it was new.

Question 2

Where does “broccoli” come from?

Accepted Answer

Vallejo, California, and the Sick Wid It circle around E-40 — Earl Stevens — who says he and producer Studio Ton landed on it looking at medical-grade cannabis. The datable proof is a lyric, not a title: "Practice Lookin Hard," on the Mail Man EP released 28 September 1993. He put out a song actually called "Broccoli" five years later, on The Element of Surprise in 1998. The word is now widely credited to D.R.A.M. and Lil Yachty, whose 2016 single "Broccoli" went top five — twenty-three years late. One honest caveat the archive keeps: the 1993 lyric proves E-40 used it in 1993, not that he invented it, and the lexicographic record does not pick the word up in print until 2001. Priority is his claim; 1993 is the fact.