Nation of Gods and Earths

Nation of Gods and Earths, also known as the Five Percent Nation, is a cultural and religious movement founded in Harlem in 1964 by Clarence 13X, a former member of the Nation of Islam. Its teachings — built around numerology systems like the «Supreme Mathematics» and «Supreme Alphabet» — hold that the Black man is the original human and that a small fraction of people («the five percent») are enlightened teachers of truth to the rest. The movement never released music itself in the commercial sense; rather, its terminology, symbols, and worldview became deeply embedded in hip hop culture, especially through New York artists.

Groups and MCs affiliated with or influenced by Five Percenter teachings include the Wu-Tang Clan, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Brand Nubian, Poor Righteous Teachers, and many others who wove phrases like «word is bond», «peace god», and references to the «Twelve Jewels» into their lyrics. Tracks explicitly built around the movement's doctrine — such as recitations of the Supreme Mathematics or Supreme Alphabet — function almost as oral catechisms set to rhythm, transmitting the philosophy in a form fans could memorize and repeat.

Beyond its direct musical output, the Nation of Gods and Earths left one of the most distinctive linguistic fingerprints on hip hop of any single source, shaping slang, spiritual imagery, and a whole vocabulary of self-designation still heard across the genre decades later.