Hip Hop Lives Art Gallery
Preserving Hip Hop Kulture for Future Generations
We can see here within these definitions how even hip and hop come together to mean hip—informed, and hop—springing or dancing. Together the term hip hop (even when spelled in lower case h) can mean an informed springing, or an up to date modern dance, or an informed movement upward. A hip (updated) hop (movement) is an intelligent movement—a movement aware of itself.
To be hip means to be up to date, relevant, in the know. Therefore to hip something or to make something hip is to modernize it. To hip a hop is to modernize an upward movement.
Gospel of Hip Hop, 1st Overstanding - Real Hip Hop, v72-73 pg73
The term culture (1439) from the Latin cultura (cul-too-ra), meaning tending, care and cultivation, seems to come from cult-, the past participle stem of the Latin colere, meaning to till, cultivate, tend to and inhabit. Cult (1616) originally meant worship or homage; not to worship or to pay homage. Cult comes from the Latin cultus (cul-toos), meaning cultivation, care, attention, worship. We can see here that the term worship was originally associated with the cultivating, caring for, and attending to, of something or someone.
Gospel of Hip Hop, 1st Overstanding - Real Hip Hop, v76-77 pg74
STREET LANGUAGE: (The study and application
of street communication.) Commonly referred to as Black English, Urban Slang and Ebonics. It is Hip Hop’s urban language and linguistic codes—the verbal communication of the streets.
Ⅰ Advanced Street Language includes the correct
pronunciation of one’s native and national language as it pertains to urban life. In addition, advanced Street Language deals with one’s communication skills even beyond what one says.
Ⅱ Street Language is not always spoken words. Hip
Hop’s Street Language includes Beat Boxin and certain street codes that may not be communicated in words at all.
Gospel of Hip Hop, 2nd Overstanding - The Refinitions R16 pg 121
Looking at the etymology of hip and hop and culture together we can interpret such a phrase as meaning; the cultivation, care, attention and worship of the seed (plan/vision) of the new
vine (people/way).
Another interpretation of hip hop culture could read; the cultivation, care, attention and worship of the intelligent movement. The term hip hop culture seems to imply the cultivation of, and care for, the upward springing of intelligence.
Gospel of Hip Hop, 1st Overstanding - Real Hip Hop, v80-81 pg74-75
The very fact that these terms hip and hop and culture and even
hip-hoppa which we spontaneously gave to ourselves in childhood play within a so-called slang dialect intuitively corresponding to the etymology of these words and terms only proves once again the depth into which the Hip Hop mind can go if left to its own development.
Gospel of Hip Hop, 1st Overstanding - Real Hip Hop, v90 pg77
