Why is it called hip-hop?
The first few words on the Sugarhill Gang’s 1979 hit “Rapper’s Delight” are “I said hip, hop, hippy to the hippy, the hip a hop ’til don’t stop.” Hip-hop heads can usually agree this is the first mainstream hip-hop hit.
The first mention of hip-hop as a cultural movement, even larger than a music genre, came in 1982 from Steven Hager, a reporter covering the Bronx for the Village Voice.
The etymology of hip and hop are both rooted within black culture, as well as the combination of the terms. “Hip” is linked to the verb hepi, which means “to see” in an enlightened sense. “Hop” linked to black cultural movements like the Harlem Renaissance and the Lindy hop. The combination hip-hop was used as a term to describe a disco party before go-go stuck.
Keith Cowboy of Grandmaster Flash’s Furious Five and rapper Lovebug Starski were high at a party and starting chanting hip and hop back and forth to each other as they MCed. They riffed back and forth, creating a scat sound heard later in “Rapper’s Delight.” The term stuck with the help of hip-hop founding father Afrika Bambaataa, who said the movement was hip and you had to hop to the music.
