Hip What?Hip-Hop!-The Origination of A Cultural Word

The Word Hip-Was used by African Americans in the 19th century to mean current and Hop refers to the hopping movement.

The form of term was first coined by  Grandmaster Flash and the Furious five and their friend Cowboy. They were making fun of a friend who had just joined the army.They uttered the words Hip/Hop/ Hip/Hop/ as a way to mimick the rythmic cadence of  marching soldiers. Cowboy incorporated this into his acts. They also performed with other disco artists  and they started calling these DJ/MC combination as Hip Hoppers(the first version of name) it was a first mean  to be a insult but it later was the word  that came to identify this new culture and music.

The term came into light in 1979 can be heard  at the beginning of the classic records Rapper's Delight by the Sugar hill gang, Superapping by Grandmaster  Flash and the positive life by LoveBug Starski. A Hip Hop pioneer and South Bronx leader Afrikka Bambata also did a lot to  popularize the term but he credits LoveBug Starski as the first to coin the term.

A lot of people confuse the term Rap and Hip Hop. Hip Hop is a culture and rapping is part of that culture.