Entry · catalog no. 4250
come correct
/ /kʌm kəˈrɛkt/ /kum kuh-REKT
verb phrase · Black American; NYC and the South · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
To show up prepared and do a thing the way it is supposed to be done — originally with your skills sharp enough to survive the comparison, later with your manners and your business in order.
“If you coming to the table, come correct.”
Origin & Attribution
Black American speech of the hip-hop era, where the first sense was competitive: get on the mic with something worth hearing or do not get on it. MC Shy D put the variant form in an album title, Comin' Correct in 88, on Luke Skyywalker Records in July 1988. A Tribe Called Quest, out of St. Albans, Queens, used the phrase on Check the Rhime in September 1991 — I come correct in full effect. Through the 1990s it broadens out of the battle context and into general conduct, which is the dominant sense now: be ready, be respectful, do it properly. One correction to the reference record: Green's Dictionary of Slang dates the phrase to a 1994 issue of The Source, which is at least three years late, and arguably six once the 1988 album title is counted.
1988
MC Shy D releases Comin' Correct in 88 on Luke Skyywalker Records
1991
A Tribe Called Quest use the phrase on Check the Rhime
1994
Green's Dictionary of Slang's earliest citation, from The Source
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Black American; NYC and the South · 1980s
Spoken by
Black American speakers; hip-hop from its first decade onward
$COMECOThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring3 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
65/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1988
in the culture
Mainstream crossover
1991
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
MC Shy D, Comin' Correct in 88 (Luke Skyywalker Records)
1988
■
A Tribe Called Quest, Check the Rhime (Jive)
1991
■
+ Cite a sourceGreen's Dictionary of Slang, come correct v., citing The Source
1994
See also