poppin’ tags

The expression poppin’ tags comes from Black slang and is found by the 2000s. It may originate in graffiti culture, where a tag refers to an artist’s signature spray-painted sign or symbol. Poppin’ tags, here, would mean “marking graffiti tags.”  

Poppin’ tags was popularized in the 2002 track “Poppin’ Tags,” originally by Twista and Ludacris and featuring Kanye West. Later that year, Jay-Z re-released it on his album The Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse. In the song, poppin’ tags means “buying lots of clothing and accessories,” taking the tags off after purchase for wearing. Sleepy Brown does the chorus: “We gon’ stay showin’ off that jewelry that we bought / And we gon’ stay leavin’ out the stores with heavy bags / ‘Cause we be poppin’ tags, pimpin’, we be poppin’ tags.”

The expression caught on in the hip-hop community and its fans. A number of other hip-hop tracks later featured it, as when Bow Wow boasted on his 2006 song “Bet That” that “store closed, still poppin’ tags on a Sunday.” Gotta look fresh, folks.

What if God was like us?
Had a squad just like us?
Always poppin' tags just like us?
Gucci bags just like us?
Always keep them stacks just like us?

— weird fuck (@jmetelec0) August 21, 2018

Some people took poppin’ tags to mean “shoplifting,” a reference to removing the electronic tags put on clothing to set off alarms. The meaning itself is a bit ambiguous in Jay-Z’s “Poppin’ Tags” when he raps: “Act a damn donkey / like the Pilgrims when they popped a tag on the Indian’s home.” This appears to mean the English colonists stole native land.

Artist Macklemore sparked new interest in poppin’ tags when he featured the expression in his 2012 hit song “Thrift Shop,” which is about getting clothes at Goodwill. In the catchy chorus, rapper Wanz sings: “I’m gonna pop some tags / Only got 20 dollars in my pocket.”