Hip Hop vs Rap: Whats The differance

KRS-One drops some knowledge using some classic Hip Hop termonolgy 

Last week on (coalition force djs) beatknockin.com Internet radio we had a show topic called "Hip Hop vs Rap" whats the difference or is there a difference? I am going to try to clarify & simplify it for you.

Modern Blues genre of music has been strongly influenced by the rap form and hip hop forms. An amalgam of the Afro-American and Caribbean music forms is what hip hop and rap have come to signify today.


Emcee Keith ‘Cowboy’ Wiggins (from the group Furious 5) coined the term hip hop in 1978 when he was joking with a friend who had just enlisted into the  army. He sang the words ‘hip/hop/hip/hop’ as mimicry of marching soldiers. Later, Wiggins included the cadence into his stage performance and that’s how the term took off inspiring an entire culture of dance and music, he also coined the phrase "throw your hands in the air & wave them like you don't care"



Of the many memorable lyrics and expressionsKRS-One has uttered over the years, perhaps the most often quoted by fans of Hip Hop is: "Rap is something you do. Hip Hop is something you live."

Simple but brilliantly profound, this regularly recited and referenced expression is part of the lyrics from the veteran hip-hop emcee, educator, activist, author's song "Hip Hop Vs. Rap," which was originally released as a B-side of the 1993 single "Sound Of Da Police" off his landmark 1993 solo debut Return Of The Boom Bap (Jive Records). The Teacha, as KRS ONE is commonly known, has long been a spokesperson for and ambassador of Hip Hop. Through his tireless two and a half decades of making Hip Hop music and giving lectures on the topic he has helped define the very meaning of the culture, or kulture, as he spells it. In fact, he has literally written the book on Hip Hop with his third and latest book, the 800 plus page The Gospel of Hip Hop, which is subtitled First Instrument presented by KRS ONE for the Temple of Hip Hop. Not surprisingly, The Teacha spends a good deal of space within these pages dissecting and analyzing the exact meaning of Hip Hop right down to its spelling, which he divides three distinct ways: Hip Hop, hip-hop, and Hiphop. 



In a in-depth interview with KRS ONE the interviewer  asked him about these spellings and just how critical he thinks it is for people to distinguish between the different spellings. "It's extremely critical in the creation of culture. When you're creating a distinct group of people or a specialized group of people, it's important that the names that you choose be your own names. Even if you borrow names from other cultures or other lexicons, you still should apply your own meanings to them. Hip Hop does this to its advantage and to its criticism. Certain words that we take and use, other people hear them as well [but] it means a different thing in their culture or in their minds. So going over this spelling of Hip Hop, it's important that we first own the spelling of Hip Hop. And ownership of the spelling of Hip Hop is derived out of meaning, out of definition," he said. 



KRS, who has obviously given much thought to the topic, then noted, "Hip Hop never enters the physical world, never. We can't drink it. We can't eat it. We can't go to it. We can't wear it. But somehow we all know that it's here. We all are feeling it, well not all, but those who feel it are sensing it psychically. We all feel and sense the same thing, which, by the way, I find magnificent and phenomenal about a culture like this; it's a culture of consciousness. Hip Hop is not physical. It's an idea. It's shared. It's a behavior. It's a way to view the world." And what about each of the spellings? "Right at the top, the first spelling is Hip Hop's first law unto itself, it's first condition, which is it's a consciousness, a collective consciousness that we are all sharing, so to spell that collective consciousness is capital H, lower case i, p, lower case h, o, p [Hiphop]-one word too, by the way. So we are controlling the spelling so that when you look at that word, when you see words like phenomenon for instance or psychology, these words don't sound like the way they are spelled but it gives the psychologist a uniqueness in the field. They own the word. They can break down that P S Y and tell you why the P is silent and so on. It draws you into their science by forcing your mind to see their words their way." 



"Then we get to the second spelling, which is Hip Hop. This is what we call breakin,' emceeing, graffiti art, DJ'ing, beat-boxing, street fashion, language, knowledge, entrepreneur skills. That's the facet of the culture. This is now the mind at work. This is the body. This is the culture. This is Hip Hop as a repeatable science and art; we spell Hip Hop in this way. It's also the name of us. It's our name. It's the name of this particular group of people who do breakin,' emceeing, graffiti art, DJ'ingboying. We are physical in art, with graffiti art. We are physical in DJ'ing -- we can cut, mix, and scratch. You know physical with clothing, physical with knowledge and language and things like that."

KRS says the third variation in the spelling comes from "the products that we create from these human skills. And that is the all lower case spelling of hip-hop with a dash in between hip and hop, or sometimes with just a space like hip hop. That's how most people spell hip-hop today and really they're referring to rap music entertainment, which is fine. You know we love rap. We make our money in rap. Rap has made us popular and very wealthy as a culture. We have no problem with lower case hip-hop, only when you're using it to describe a people. The same offense would come if you were spelling American with a lower case 'a' or Haitian with a lower case 'h' or Japanese with a lower case 'j.' We are a culture and those who respect the culture spell the culture with a capital H, i, p, capital H, o, p. So this is why it's extremely important to spell Hip Hop at least with a capital H but also to know the difference between what means what." Of course, this is all very technical and, being realistic.


* my closing overview rap was born out of hip hop, example master of ceremony was a host/band leader in the 1940s so that's were you get the moniker mc (move the crowd)aka emcee, another example Disc Jockey a person that work in a radio station that's was your job classification if you were in radio in late 60s-70s then it evolve into Dee Jay then into DJ.




Its like this a rapper will never be a emcee, just listen to the music 99.9% of all the music played on the radio (urban stations) are rappers.when you hear a rapper he going to hit on 3 points of interest because he is not in touch with the culture  1)his bling  2)how much dope he sold  3)his wealth(cars & rims) not in that particular order believe you me it will be talked about at some point and time in his verses.


the emcee (mc) is crafty in his word play.fliping rhymes throughout his verses, he knows how to draw you in he may tell you a story or what he did today we he got up to start his day.99.9% of the emcee can be found in the progressive underground hiphop catagory not on the radio (that's another blog topic we will get into later) he completely knows and understand the culture


I'm going to play a game with you I will give you a name of artist . you answer with rapper or emcee?


1)Rakim
2) T.I.
3)Lil Wayne
4) Common
5)Rascoe Dash
6) Mos Def
7)Yo Gotti
9)Nas
10)Wiz Khalifa
11)MF Doom


I hope that this brief outline helps you with rap vs hip hop question hope you got some of your questions answered. you may want pick up "The Gospel Of Hip Hop" by KRS-One its a good read...Peace Ghost Dogg