Entry · catalog no. 1216
dropping science
/ /ˈdɹɑpɪn ˈsaɪəns/ /DRAH-pin SY-uhns
verb phrase · New York — Long Island and the five boroughs · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
To put genuine knowledge into a rhyme — history, doctrine, analysis — as opposed to boasting or storytelling.
“He wasn't there to entertain anybody; he came on stage dropping science for sixteen bars and walked off.”
2.
More loosely, to explain something to someone who needs to hear it.
“Auntie started dropping science on the whole table about what the bank had actually done.”
Origin & Attribution
The phrase comes out of the Nation of Gods and Earths — the Five Percenters — a Harlem-founded offshoot of the Nation of Islam, in whose vocabulary "science" names the lessons themselves, the body of knowledge a student is expected to master. Rakim, a Five Percenter from Long Island, carried it onto record in 1986 on "My Melody," the B-side of "Eric B. Is President." Within three years it had spread across nearly every major New York rap release, and by the early 1990s it had loosened into general slang for saying something worth hearing. Stetsasonic, Boogie Down Productions, and Public Enemy are each credited online with the phrase; none is first — Stetsasonic's "Talkin' All That Jazz" is 1988, and BDP and Public Enemy figure in the 1989 wave. Rakim did not coin it either; he brought it from Five Percenter lessons onto vinyl, which is a different and more accurate claim.
1986
Rakim uses it on "My Melody," B-side to "Eric B. Is President" on Zakia Records
1988
Marley Marl with Craig G title a track "Droppin' Science" on In Control, Vol. I
1989
In common circulation — Big Daddy Kane, N.W.A, Boogie Down Productions
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
New York — Long Island and the five boroughs · 1980s
Spoken by
Rappers, Five Percenters, then general
$DROPPIThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Fading40 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
79/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1986
in the culture
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
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Eric B. featuring Rakim — "My Melody" — recording · 1986
Zakia Records; B-side to "Eric B. Is President." The line runs: I drop science like a scientist
■
Eric B. & Rakim — Paid in Full — album · 1987
Album release of the same track; the Oxford English Dictionary's draft addition dates the phrase only to 1989, antedated to this album on the American Dialect Society list in 2005
■
+ Cite a sourceMarley Marl featuring Craig G — "Droppin' Science" — recording · 1988
In Control, Vol. I
See also