5% Nation, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

5% Nation n.

[the Nation of Islam teaches that any large group of people, and more spec., the African-American nation, can be divided into three groups, the 85%, basically the ignorant masses that need to be led, the 5%, the people with true knowledge of self whose job it is to lead the masses and fight against the 10%, the people who have partial knowledge of self and use it to gain power and wealth by exploiting the 85%, also referred to as ‘bloodsuckers of the poor’. The chosen percentages are those they feel are the percentages within the black community. These numbers are neither universal (although these groups do exist within any large group) nor unchangeable]

(US black) a black radical group, an offshoot of the Nation of Islam; thus Five Percenter n., a member of the group.

1997		Wu-Tang Clan ‘Wu Revolution’ 🎵 Wu-Tang Forever [album] Eighty five percent of our people / They’re our future / Was uncivilized / Poison animal eaters / They’re slaves of the mental powers [...] and they’re easily lead in the wrong direction / And hard to be lead in the right / And now you got the ten percent / Who are rich slave makers of the poor [...] They’re also known as blood suckers of the poor / Save the children / And then you got the five percent / Who are the poor righteous teachers.
1998		Source Nov. 130: Rakim [...] continuously rewrote the righteous manifesto, with his deep, five-percent-styled lyrics.
2000		W. Shaw Westsiders 87: The Nation of Islam and its less disciplinarian, new-age offshoot the Five Percent Nation.
2000		T. Fontana ‘Gray Matter’ Oz ser. 4 ep. 5 [TV script] ‘What kind of a name is Supreme Allah?’ ‘He’s a five per center [...] it means that five per cent of all black men are enlightened with the true understanding of life.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 157: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] The Five Percenters.
a.2003		Korg ‘Cas’ Diary’ Session 2a on Darkqueen.org 🌐 Some of this 5% nation crap that he went on about. Screw the 5%, the 15% and the 85%. Screw them all.
2003		J. Lethem Fortress of Solitude 427: Just a bullshit Five Percenter out on the street, the dude had actually taken to study of Islam when he got inside.
2008		R. Price Lush Life 209: Rikers-based Five Percenters, Brooklyn-based jihadists .
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 16: I got surrounded by some gang members [...] They asked me if I was a Five Percenter.