Hip Hop vs. Rap: The Difference

Hip Hop!
Hip hop teaches the history of the inner city. It teaches the economics of post-industrialism. The hip hop culture is a lens through which we can really analyze current events and politics in our society. Hip Hop adds a face and a voice to those who might not have otherwise been seen or heard from in any other medium. Whether right or wrong Hip Hop gives credence to those who have been historically shunned, disregarded, oppressed and invalidated. Hip Hop is a way of life, relative movement, and culture that only a few can relate to and partake in because in the backdrop is “hood reality” and the ideal “keeping it real”. Hip Hop is an evolving life force within the person that lives it, breathes it, and moves around in it. Hip Hop is more than what you hear on the radio, read in the magazines, or what you watch on TV. Hip Hop is you. Hip Hop is ME!

What Is Hip Hop Culture?
Too many people are unclear as to what Hip Hop Culture really is and tend to use the term frivolously. Hip Hop Culture is commonly recognized by its main elements: Graffiti, Djing, Breakdancing (B-boying), Mcing, and Beatboxing. However, these elements are simply forms of art designed to express a deeper meaning. At its core, Hip Hop is so much more than mere art and entertainment. Hip Hop is the constantly evolving spirit and consciousness of urban youth that keeps recreating itself in a never-ending cycle. It is joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain, victory, defeat, anger, happiness, confusion, clarity, humor, intensity, dream, nightmare, life, death, and everything else in between. It is the spirit that connects the past to the present and lays a path towards the future. The spirit of Hip Hop is the same as Jazz, Reggae, Blues, Doo-wop, Be-bop, and a multitude of other types of expressions. Hip Hop Culture cannot be assimilated, integrated, diluted, watered-down, sold for profit, or pimped. It will always exist, in this incarnation or another.

What some mainstream promotes as being Hip Hop, or Hip Pop, is the product being sold to you and your children by media that pollutes the mind and makes impressionable individuals think that being a pimp, player, thug, ho, bitch, baller, or hustler is the thing to do. It is the poison being fed to you by corporate rappers who say that it’s not their job to be anyone’s role model while they depend on 13 to 20 years old fans to buy their music. It’s the studio thug telling your children to represent thug life while his children are well provided for and attend private school. It’s some female rappers who encourage their young female listeners to stay in school and out of trouble when speaking at junior highs across the country while their music gives the same kids the opposite message.

Hip Hop is life and all it has to offer. This knowledge lays the foundation for all those who thought of Hip Hop as nothing more than entertainment.

hip hop v rap [difference]

For me the difference between hip hop and rap lies in the lyrics, any emcee who spits dope poetry or a positive message is hip hop and anyone who always spits about the money, bitches and fame is rap. the too can cross over tho like erik has said you can make good poetry about a whack subject andd you can preach a positive message but its whack music.

rap is a part of hip hop, theres a thread here that explains rapping is just slang for talking, so all emcees rap, we rep real hip hop so we should also rep real rap. artists like big l & jay z (early work) i see as real rappers but not real hip hop emcees

it comes down to real hip hop is a product of real creativty and positive energy, i dunno why i posted this, it annoys me that its so hard to define whats real hip hop and what isnt but i wanted to give it a shot, if theres anyone whos got a differnt view of hip hop i would like to here it but i really believe that real hip hop is what you make it to be - its different for everyone

The World Is Yours

What the mainstream promotes as being Hip Hop, or Hip Pop, is the product being sold to you and your children by mainstream media that pollutes the mind and makes impressionable individuals think that being a pimp, player, thug, ho, bitch, gangster, baller, or hustler is the thing to do. It is the poison being fed to you by mainstream rappers who say that it’s not their job to be anyone’s role model while they depend on 13 to 20 years old fans to buy their music. It’s the studio thug telling your children to represent thug life while his children are well provided for and attend private school. It’s some female rappers who encourage their young female listeners to stay in school and out of trouble when speaking at junior highs across the country while their music gives the same kids the opposite message.

You get the point. Hip Hop is life and all it has to offer; Hip “Pop” is death served to you on a shiny silver platter. This knowledge lays the foundation for all those who thought of Hip Hop as nothing more than entertainment.

and this is the blog on what is hip hop made by me and Erik :http://realhiphop4ever.ucoz.com/blog/2008-09-29-1

i do understand what you are saying and it is confusing especially that we are all hip hop heads but prefer one over the other....i just want to add somethings to this thread incase someone still doesnt know the difference between hip hop n rap..emcee n rapper.

Ok i dont know any other way to put this and its sounds a bit mixed up so hope u understand what i mean but just remember "hip hop is a culture not rap" so its different because rap is the musical style regardless of commercial or issues addressed and Hip-hop is a lifestyle. Rap is what some people who are involved in the hip hop culture use as a mode of expression. Rap is hip-hop its just not all of hip hop.

Hip Hop- it's a state of mind, it's a language, it's something you feel every moment of your day. Hip hop is not commercial, its deep, it has a meaning for each person. You don't just listen to hip hop music, you feel it, you respect it, understand it, share it and yes we have heard this part a million times lol

Alot of Hip Hoppers rap but it is not a required necessity for admittance into the culture. Another way i can make it alittle easier to understand, all "hip hop emcee's rap" they are all "rapping" as many call it today but like you already know not all rappers can be called emcees.

An emcee raps but represents the hip hop culture, once he reps the hip hop culture we call him an emcee like it was called back in the days, we have mc.shan, mc (emcee) lyte, mc marly marl etc. he deserves that "title" and not ordinary rapper, he raps from the heart and when he stops rapping from the heart he is no longer an emcee till he comes correct again. A rapper can rap from the heart with meaning also and he can be tight but when he starts to change his lifestyle or is a "sellout" and lives soley for the spotlight, money and not the hip hop culture and its principles then he is not considerd an emcee anymore but a simple rapper, this same rapper eventually becomes more of a sellout and sucked into corporate world or trying hard to be.."emcee" is the proper more acceppted "title"used by the hip hop culture. An emcee reps the culture and a rapper does not care about it but yes they are all "rapping" rappers and emcees could be rapping about the same message but not really representing the same thing or the same lifestyle, especiailly the culture..rapping can have motives behind it, "a person that is sometimes an emcee can be a rapper at other times yet still be accepted by the hip hop culture" for some reason i guess becasue of his lifestyle and dedication to the culture in the past that stays with him....i hope this helps alittle.

say "Rap is the music..hip-hop is the culture".........Oh by the way chinita n erik
i sent you both emails...2 different ones..just wondering if u got them
check your PM...by the way iv got a dope sig

but DJing and producing/beat making aren't always the same thing, and writing seems like a confusing name to call it, at least if its graffiti i know what that person is talking about.

I dont understand why people call graff artist "writers"
when only tags and words invol writing alot of graf
is pictures people of spray painted.....