Song · Jurassic 5
“What's Golden” by Jurassic 5
From the album Power in Numbers (2002)
“What's Golden” by Jurassic 5 appears on 10 radio countdowns from 7 stations between 2002 and 2023. It was first released in 2002 on the album Power in Numbers. Its best result is #40 on the Live 105 Top 105.3 Songs of 2002. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #138 alternative song of 2002.
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Video from YouTube (Jurassic5VEVO). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube
"What's Golden" is Jurassic 5 doing what they did best on their third album, Power in Numbers, in 2002: MCs trading lines over a beat built to rattle the trunk. DJ Nu-Mark produced and recorded it and worked the turntables, and Troy Staton mixed it. The backbone comes from samples of Public Enemy's "Prophets of Rage" and Clive Hicks's "Look Hear", and Chuck D and Eric Sadler share in the songwriting credit.
AllMusic's John Bush singled it out, along with "A Day at the Races," as the album's old-school anthems amid darker material, and that's exactly how it plays: bright, bouncing, rooted in the park-jam tradition. The video drops Chali 2na, Mark 7even, Akil and Soup into a hip-hop club full of dancers, then into cornfields, buses and alleys, rapping as if nothing around them had changed. Video games kept it spinning for years.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 72 | KROQ Los Angeles, CA | KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 2002 | 107 |
| 2002 | 40 | Live 105 San Francisco, CA | Live 105 Top 105.3 Songs of 2002 | 106 |
| 2002 | 84 | WHFS Washington, DC / Baltimore, MD | WHFS Top 99.1 Songs of 2002 | 100 |
| 2002 | 49 | Triple J Australia (national) | Triple J Hottest 100 of 2002 | 100 |
| 2003 | 70 | Live 105 San Francisco, CA | Live 105 Top 105.3 Songs of 2003 | 106 |
| 2003 | 86 | Q101 Chicago, IL | Q101 Top 101 Songs of 2003 | 101 |
| 2003 | 99 | 102.1 The Edge Dallas-Fort Worth, TX | KDGE Top 102 Songs of 2003 | 102 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | 169 | Q101 | Q101 Top 300 Party Songs of All-Time (July 2004) | 300 |
| 2022 | 417 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the 2000s | 907 |
| 2023 | 555 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of All Time | 909 |
Also listed as: What's Golden?.
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