Creation of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap.
Universal Zulu Nation founder Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture in which the music belonged; although it is also suggested that it was a derogatory term to describe the type of music.
The first use of the term in print was in The Village Voice,[15] by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop.
Back When....
Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American youth residing in the Bronx. Block parties incorporated DJs who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul music.
Turntablist techniques – such as scratching...beat mixing and/or matching, and beat juggling – eventually developed along with the breaks, creating a base that could be rapped over, in a manner similar to signifying, as well as the art of toasting, another influence found in Jamaican dub music.
Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat.
The roots of rapping are found in African-American music and ultimately African music, particularly that of the griots of West African culture.