Origin Of The Label "Hip Hop"

[Swifty]

For example, for a couple of years in the mid 1920's The Charleston was a very popular dance. It then fell out of fashion and has rarely been repeated.

I met a young lad a few years ago that was working for the Mrs, he was into 'street dancing', I'm an ex break dancer and body popper etc blah blah so he gave me a demonstration and explained to me that it was more a 20's era Lindy Hop thing that was coming back into fashion that he was doing. I haven't seen evidence of that happening although I was impressed that he realised that the adapted expression 'hip hop' came from that era in that breakers were doing a 'hip' version of the Lindy Hop scene so hence 'hip hop'..

 

[Victory]

I met a young lad a few years ago that was working for the Mrs, he was into 'street dancing', I'm an ex break dancer and body popper etc blah blah so he gave me a demonstration and explained to me that it was more a 20's era Lindy Hop thing that was coming back into fashion that he was doing. I haven't seen evidence of that happening although I was impressed that he realised that the adapted expression 'hip hop' came from that era in that breakers were doing a 'hip' version of the Lindy Hop scene so hence 'hip hop'..

Swifty

On the origin of the phrase Hip Hop, as I have it.

Mid 1970's in the Bronx, people would call the actual dance gatherings "Hops" as in "You going to the Hop?"

So that does suggest a link back to Lindy Hopping.

Though the dance gatherings called also be called "The Boyoyng" or "The Jam" or "The Go Off"

The Hip part comes from people asking each other "Are you Hip?"
As in, are you "Cool?"
"Are you OK?"

Cowboy of the Furious Five had used the phrase "Hip Hop" repeatedly at a jam in 1978, mocking a friend who was off to join the army, giving a sound to rhythm of marching.

And it was used by the Sugarhill Gang in 1979 in the record Rappers Delight in that rhythmic sense "The Hip, The Hop, The Hippedy", though they actually copied most of the rhymes in that record from Casnaova Fly of the Cold Crush Brothers.

Then Lovebug Starski put them together....to describe the new generation of rap records coming out of the Bronx in the early 1980s, and it quickly became the term the media used for the whole culture.
Previously people would have just called it 'B-Boying"

The first record I know of to be named after the music/culture was "Hip Hop Be Bop (Don't Stop) by Man Parrish in 1982.
Do you know of anything earlier?

 

[James_H]

On the origin of the phrase Hip Hop, as I have it.

Mid 1970's in the Bronx, people would call the actual dance gatherings "Hops" as in "You going to the Hop?"

So that does suggest a link back to Lindy Hopping.

On a related note, you can see videos of people breakdancing way back to the 1920s.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... On the origin of the phrase Hip Hop, as I have it.

Mid 1970's in the Bronx, people would call the actual dance gatherings "Hops" as in "You going to the Hop?"
So that does suggest a link back to Lindy Hopping.

Though the dance gatherings called also be called "The Boyoyng" or "The Jam" or "The Go Off" ...

The use of 'hop' to mean a gathering with dancing or a dance party dates back to the 1940's in American English.

In the 1950's school or extracurricular teen parties with dancing were often called:

- Hops (in general)*
- Sock hops (when shoes had to be removed to protect hardwood gymnasium flooring)
- Record hops (when the music was provided from vinyl singles and / or albums)

* ... as in Danny & the Juniors' 1957 iconic early rock 'n roll hit "At The Hop" ...

Dances in the gym at my high school were still called "sock hops" during the last half of the Sixties - albeit with an admitted bit of self-conscious throwback connotation.

 

[Victory]

On a related note, you can see videos of people breakdancing way back to the 1920s.

Being pedantic, some of the moves that became incorporated in Breakdancing go back to the 1820's when slaves would dance on a square or a box.
Earlier even in that some traditional Ghanaian dances are held inside a circle of people that would in some aspect represent the circle which forms around breakers.

But actual Breakdancing in a linear form to what it is now, dates back to the very late 1960s.
With significant input from The Twins* up to the mid 70's, then with the Rocksteady Crew making it more acrobatic from the late 70's to early 1980's.

Popping and Locking late 60's but definitely can be seen on Soul Train shows from 1972.
Moonwalking at least as far back as the 1950's with Bill Bailey...possibly older.

But a Fortean aspect of this blew my mind.
The Twins lectured in London five years ago.
They said the only dancing they had seen was one performance of James Brown at The Apollo in 1971...which would have had some Popping, Moonwalking and possibly The Robot.

So The Twins came up with breaking moves on their own.
Yet some of those moves are moves which were done before them by others in another continent, which The Twins had never seen.
And some of the kicks from Uprocking are very similar to kick dances from the Congo.
And also similar to Capoiera moves...but The Twins would not have seen Capoeira...which was not even taught in New York at the time they composed their breaking moves....Capoiera came to New York in 1974 as far as anyone can tell, and that was just one class.

So we either have a massive coincidence, or could The Twins have seen clips such as James H has posted above on TV in their early childhood, or could there possibly be an inherited "Spiritual Dance DNA" at work?
The Twins themselves were very aware of this and were quite freaked out by it.

*The Twins's name had a prefix in the 1970's, but they refuse to use it now because of it's prejorative connotations.

 

[James_H]

Right, so all we need now is some illustration from a 17th Century pamphlet of someone doing The Worm.

 

[Xanatic*]

Was it The Retard Twins? The Redneck Twins? Will you tell us if we get it right?

 

[Ladyloafer]

On a related note, you can see videos of people breakdancing way back to the 1920s.

Is that...that looks like fresh princes Carlton at the end? If he'd stood up and done 'the carlton' I'd have been even more impressed.

 

[Papa Human]

"Hip means to know and hop means to move"

 

[Graylien]

While visiting the launderette today I noticed a poster in the window advertising that Melle Mel and The Sugarhill Gang would be performing at the Norwich Waterfront this July, in honor of the 40th anniversary of Rapper's Delight.

I've only been to The Waterfront once many years ago when a band I was briefly a member of performed a gig there.

As I recall, the sound system was utterly mediocre. And matters were not helped by our drummer getting so drunk while waiting for the support act to finish that he could barely keep time. At one point he stopped playing entirely, glared at a random audience member, and shouted "WHAT? WHAT?"

And as usual our guitarist turned his amp up to 11 so that he drowned out the rest of the band.

Hopefully the venue has since upgraded their equipment and employed a decent sound mixer so that Melle Mel can be appreciated in decent sound quality.

If I didn't have such awful memories of the venue I'd be very tempted to go along.

 

[gojiramonkey]

I met a young lad a few years ago that was working for the Mrs, he was into 'street dancing', I'm an ex break dancer and body popper etc blah blah so he gave me a demonstration and explained to me that it was more a 20's era Lindy Hop thing that was coming back into fashion that he was doing. I haven't seen evidence of that happening although I was impressed that he realised that the adapted expression 'hip hop' came from that era in that breakers were doing a 'hip' version of the Lindy Hop scene so hence 'hip hop'..

Again.... Very belated post but on the theme of hip hop, I remember watching a TV show on medieval France and it claimed that minstrels or whoever (feel free to add your own Galaxy chocolate brand here) would battle with words of wit and he demonstrated some and it was literally rapping as we know today.... I was dumbfounded......

 

[gojiramonkey]

Damn I am loving exploring all these old threads..... Makes my night shifts fly by.... Now if only I could stop stuffing smokey bacon crisps into my greedy gob!!

 

[gojiramonkey]

The body that Walkers and Mr Kipling built.... Do we get our idealised slip of a youth bodies back in the Afterlife..?? And do they serve tea and cake.... Or even cake and fine wines??!!

 

[Victory]

Damn I am loving exploring all these old threads..... Makes my night shifts fly by.... Now if only I could stop stuffing smokey bacon crisps into my greedy gob!!

Hip Hop and Crispy Bacon combined from 2015

 

[Impybat]

I am so glad to see this thread revived! Regarding Graylien's Charleston comment, that is a move shuffle dancers incorporate into their routines as well as some pop & lock. I'm (attempting) to learn shuffle dance through YouTube vids and the Charleston took me quite a while to sort-of get.

Swifty, is your avatar you breakdancing?