In Jordan Peele's trailer for the 2019 hit, “Us,” Gabriel Wilson (Winston Duke) started singing along to “I Got 5 On It” when it came on the radio while driving his family to the beach. "That's a classic right there," he mused.
His son in the backseat asked, "What does 'I Got 5 On It' mean?"
"It's about drugs," retorted the daughter.
Gabriel vehemently denied it. "It's not about drugs; it's a dope song. Don't do drugs."
The movie became a blockbuster hit with $256 million in the box office, and it was not just Peele who garnered rave reviews — viewers were nostalgic when the Luniz track was used along with the eerie "Tethered Mix."
And fans of the song knew right then that Gabriel was lying all along. 1995’s 13th best-selling hit, “I Got 5 On It,” is indeed a stoner anthem.
The song has been ranked number 224 by Pitchfork in its 250 Best Songs of the 1990s list: “The raps invite you to chip in; the beat cautions you to beware.”The Bay Area rap duo wrote the song, their lone hit, about going 50-50 on a dime bag, and on paper it’s a celebration of the rituals and etiquette of social smoking… It wasn’t a stretch, then, when Jordan Peele absorbed the track into the score for his 2019 horror movie Us. The raps invite you to chip in; the beat cautions you to beware.”
How “I Got 5 On It” Came to Be
Released in May 1995, "I Got 5 on It" is considered one of the most iconic 90s tunes. American rap duo Luniz (composed of West Coast rappers Yukmouth and Numskull) featuring R&B singer Michael Marshall from Timex Social Club released the track as the lead single from the duo's debut album, Operation Stackola.
Yukmouth originally wrote the hook, but deemed it was lacking any impact when he performed it alone. So producer Tone Capone introduced Marshall.
In an interview, Marshall recalled that his inspiration for the hook of the song came from DJ Malcolm McLaren’s track “Buffalo Gals.” “I’d be walking around making that sound: buh da buh dum, buh da buh dum, buh da buh dom, buh da duh dum. That sound is distinctly recognizable as the riff in the Luniz track. “I’m telling [the producer when we recorded ‘Thinkin’ About Ya’], ‘I want the song to start as this sort of orchestral, kind of eerie sound because it’s a sad song,’” he said.
He added the original hook was cluttered and wordy, so he worked on it, crafting what is now recognized in the song. “The hook idea was a little more jumbled than what you hear now. It was too many words. I edited it and did my thing and that’s what we have now,” he mentioned.
With Capone's production, Luniz's lyrics (with the phrase "I got five on it"), and Marshall's hook, "I Got 5 on It" became a global hit. The record peaked at number 1 in the Netherlands, number 2 in Germany, number 3 in the UK and number 8 in the United States aside from top ten appearances on the charts of 10 other countries. In 1995, it was certified platinum, selling 1 million copies.
The Influence of ‘Us’
When asked by Entertainment Weekly on why he decided to use Luniz’s hit in his movie, Peele replied, “That song, it came pretty simple, I'm making a movie in Northern California, that's a bay area hip-hop classic and I wanted to explore this very relatable journey of being a parent [and] maybe some of the songs you listened to back in the day aren't appropriate for your kids. So that was one level, and another part was, I love songs that have a great feeling but also have a haunting element to them and I feel like the beat in that song has this inherent cryptic energy, almost reminiscent of the Nightmare on Elm Street soundtrack. So those were the ideas that that song hit the bullseye on for me, and also, it's just a dope track.”
And as soon as the trailer hit YouTube, it spawned another wave of interest on the song.
Capone wrote in The Guardian, “To me, it’s a record that says, ‘Let’s party.’ That’s all it’s really saying. ‘Hey, let’s go get a bag, smoke and have fun.’ ‘I Got Five On It’ means collaborate and get together. Now, because of ‘Us’, a whole new generation are about to party to it.”
Numskull, on the other hand, was ecstatic to learn the song would be included in the film. He said, “It was the best thing, besides my children being born, I had ever heard.”
It’s a legacy indeed in the hip-hop industry.
He added, “Our slang camouflaged what we were actually saying, and that allowed the song to spread to places it couldn’t have if it was real explicit, like, ‘Roll up, light up, smoke that weed, kids!’ After the song blew up, it became universal – you could put five on anything. ‘I got five on some beer’, ‘I got five on some McDonald’s’, ‘I got five on some gas.’”
Royalty Earnings Performance
At Royalty Exchange, a three-track listing that includes the public performance royalties for ‘I Got 5 On It’ was sold in May 2023 for $150,000. At the time of the sale in the last 12 months, it had earned $14,430 with a three-year average of $12,459. As of today, in the previous 12 months it’s earned $16,627, a nice 15% increase in earnings in just a year.
An even bigger piece of the hit record, the sound recording royalties, was also sold in March 2023 for $715,000. At the time of the sale, the previous 12 months earnings were $173,624 and as of today the most recent 12 months earnings were $193,817. A big 11% increase in just a year.
And here’s the best part: there’s a new listing that just sold only a few days ago for $245,000. This piece of the earnings made $24,789 in the last 12 months and received 64 offers from 10 different investors.
This listing has earned $24,789 in the last 12 months, almost double that of the previously sold asset. It also has a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16% over the last five years, which is significantly above the 75th percentile of the catalogs analyzed by Royalty Exchange.
In 2023, the royalties reached $24,788, a 73% upsurge driven mostly by streaming synchronization earnings compared to the $14,322 it recorded in 2019.
Streaming is the leading source of earnings for this listing with $18,481. On Spotify, the song has almost 500 million streams to date.
Synchronization income peaked in Year 1 of the most recent five-year period derived from earnings from the placement in the movie "Us" and again in 2022 for a placement in an American Express commercial as well as in a FanDuel ad.
Interested in Investing?
Check out this listing that just sold on Royalty Exchange today and see the journey of the bids that investors placed over the course of it being live on the platform. If you want to make an offer on the secondary market for the other two listings that sold last year you can do so here. Those listings show the most up to date financial info and recent offers that the catalogs are continuing to receive from investors.
Royalty Exchange offers a lot of hip-hop catalogs that are up for auction today, so sign up as an investor to get started.
If you’re new to royalty investing, Royalty Exchange has prepared this guide on Royalty Investing Made Easy. Discover why so many investors today are actively searching for music catalog deals to add to their investment portfolio.
