"[7] Upon the single release, Larry Flick from Billboard remarked that here, the act drops samples of the Jackson Five's "ABC" onto "a rousing hip-hop beat-base.

"[8] James Bernard from Entertainment Weekly described it as "a sly, body-rocking tune with a melodic pop hook and plenty of cute double entendres".

[9] Dennis Hunt from Los Angeles Times viewed it as a "lively, lewd hit single", "which is cleverly constructed on the framework of the Jackson 5’s bubble-gum soul classic".

[11] A reviewer from Music & Media felt "It's further proof of the new direction in rap heading more towards a normal pop song.

", an old-fashioned cheating song by Naughty by Nature [...] is shaping up as one of the summer's hits on local streets.

The first indication is the sound of "O.P.P" coming from the back of Jeeps; the second is that bootleg T-shirts advertising the band—Trech (Trech Criss), Vin Rock (Vinnie Brown) and Kay Gee (Keir Gist) -- are being sold all over lower Manhattan.

"[16] Stanton Swihart of AllMusic felt it's "a song that somehow managed the trick of being both audaciously catchy and subversively coy at the same time."

He added, "Its irrepressible appeal was so widespread, in fact, that it played just as well to the hardcore heads in the hood as it did to the hip-hop dabblers in the suburbs.

"[18] In October 2023, Billboard magazine ranked it number 96 in their "500 Best Pop Songs of All Time",[6] saying, "Three decades later, all it takes is the opening piano plinks to remind even the most conservative ‘90s kid that deep down, damn skippy, they’re still a card-carrying member."

[19] A music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Rodd Houston and Marcus Raboy.

The video was later made available on Naughty by Nature's official YouTube channel in 2010, and had generated more than 19 million views as of January 2023.