CREW NOUN (YOUTH CULTURE)

In hip hop culture, a group of rappers, break-dancers, graffiti artists, etc. working together as a team. Also, loosely, one's gang or posse. Etymology: A specialized use of crew in the sense of 'a body or squad of people working together', which goes back to the seventeenth century. In this case, there is probably a conscious allusion to the Rock Steady Crew: see break-dancing. History and Usage: Originally used mainly of groups of rappers (from about 1982 in the US), the term was soon applied to street groups using other hip-hop forms of expression such as break-dancing and graffiti (see tagÜ) and by the end of the decade had been adopted more generally by groups of youngsters. To kids out of the South Bronx and Harlem, what the top crews make is big bucks. For a one-night gig...a dancer takes home $150 to $300. Village Voice (New York) 10 Apr. 1984, p. 38 He and four friends, members of a crew of graffiti artists who call themselves the L.A. Beastie Boys, gathered at the park. Los Angeles Times 22 Oct. 1987, section 10 (Glendale), p. 1