"Brooklyn Zoo" is the debut single by American hip hop artist Ol' Dirty Bastard from the album, Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (1995). Ol' Dirty Bastard was the second member of the Wu-Tang Clan to release a solo effort, behind Method Man. "Brooklyn Zoo" is Ol' Dirty Bastard's second highest charting single, behind "Got Your Money".

The song is composed of an intro followed by a single long verse and finishes with a repeated hook, "Shame on you when you step through to the Ol' Dirty Bastard, Brooklyn Zoo!" This line is an interpolation of another Ol' Dirty Bastard line from the song "Protect Ya Neck" by the Wu-Tang Clan from the album Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) ("Shame on you, when you step through to the Ol' Dirty Bastard, straight from the Brooklyn Zoo").

The song's lyrics take the form of a tirade against an unnamed adversary.

About halfway through the song a line is repeated in a crescendo which builds to a scream ("By a nigga, who couldn't figure").

Part of the first verse had been used in freestyles previously.

The name "Brooklyn Zoo" refers to the violent residents of the borough of Brooklyn, in which Ol' Dirty Bastard grew up. It does not refer to the zoological park in Brooklyn, which is located in the gentrified suburb of Prospect Park.

The name also refers to the group, Brooklyn Zu, who were closely affiliated with Ol' Dirty Bastard. In the bonus DVD of Message to the Other Side, Brooklyn Zu member, Buddha Monk, explains that Russell Jones aka Ol' Dirty Bastard and the members of Brooklyn Zu were having an aggressive argument for unknown reasons. During the argument, Jones walked into the sound booth and started recording a track, using the energy and anger from the argument to inspire his lyrics. Buddha Monk also claims Jones used some words and sentences used in the argument to create the track.

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