No cap
Café Bro
There is a new coffee shop in my town. It’s called Café Bro and they have an interesting slogan. It says, “We are the CEO of café. No cap.” I find this very amusing. First, there is the poorly worded English. It should say, “We are the CEOs of this café.” But that also is a weird thing to say. And then, they use internet jargon, “no cap.” It seems that whoever owns this spent some time online and is probably young.
Meaning
No cap means no lying. It is a way of assuring someone that you are not lying to them. It is often used hyperbolically to say that it is really, really, really the truth.
Example: You really tricked me. No cap.
Origin
Surprisingly, this is an old phrase that dates to the early 20th century. At that time in the Black community, cap meant to brag or exaggerate. Dr. Sharese King says that no cap came from a game of trading insults that aren’t based in truth.
The phrase gained popularity in the 2010s through the Atlanta-area hip hop community. In particular, no cap was brought to a larger audience in 2017 when Young Thug & Future released a song called, “No cap.” Since then, it has been quite popular on Black Twitter. However, they use no cap to talk about having no limits to their wealth. A cap can be considered an upper or lower limit. So, if there is no limit, it has no cap. In his song, No Cap, Migos (ft. Travis Scott) uses the phrase in is better known context, meaning no lying.
Knowyourmeme.com credits the rapper, Willie D., with the precursor to no cap, high cap. It appeared in his 1989 song, Put The Fuckin’ Gun Away. Willie D claims that high capping was used in the 1990s the same way no capping is used today.