The phrase was popularised by N.W.A and their 1988 track Fuck tha Police from the album Straight Outta Compton, a protest song about police brutality and racial profiling in Los Angeles. The line became one of the most quoted slogans in hip hop and has been sampled, chanted and parodied for decades. As a short soundboard clip it works separately from the full song, reused in memes and edits as an instant shorthand for anti authority anger, rebellion or dark humour when a scene involves police, rules or getting caught.