HIP HOP

noun, adjective, and verb Sometimes written hip-hop or Hip-Hop (Music) (Youth Culture) noun: A street subculture (originally among urban teenagers in the US) which combines rap music, graffiti art, and break-dancing with distinctive codes of dress and speech; more specifically, the dance music of this subculture, which features rap (frequently on political themes) delivered above spare electronic backing, and harsh rhythm tracks. adjective: Belonging to hip-hop culture or its music. intransitive verb: To dance to hip-hop music. Etymology: Formed by combining the adjective hip in its slang sense 'cool' with the noun hop, which also had a well-established slang sense 'dance'; hip-hop had existed as an adverb meaning 'with hopping movements' since the seventeenth century, but hip hop as a noun was a quite separate development. Its adoption as the name of the subculture and its music may have been influenced by the rap-funk catch-phrase hip hop, be bop, chanted by the disc jockey and rapper Lovebug Starsky in the form 'to the hip hop, hip hop, don't stop that body rock'. History and Usage: Hip hop originated among young Blacks and Hispanics in New York in the second half of the seventies but was first widely publicized at about the same time as break-dancing in 1982 or 1983. At first the name was used to refer to the assertive and showy culture as a whole, with its visible and flamboyant street manifestations; it was the music which was imported to other cultures, though, and in the UK the word has been used mainly to refer specifically to this since it became popular in British clubs in about 1986. Its popularity as a dance music has led to the development of the verb hip hop and the action noun hip hopping; someone who listens or dances to the music or follows the culture in general is a hip hopper. Like breakdancing, rap and hip hop in general flourished at street level despite overexposure in too many 'breaksploitation' films and a virtual end to exposure in the media. Washington Post 30 Dec. 1984, section K, p. 5 Those hip to the beat cats down at Streetsounds bring you the biggest and freshest names in American hip hop. City Limits 12 June 1986, p. 89 The look is squeaky clean. In its simplest form, the hip-hopper's kit consists of a hooded baggy top, tracksuit pants and training shoes. Observer 24 Sept. 1989, p. 37