mental_floss question of the day.
A: This is one of the trickier questions we’ve tried to answer. It seems every time we’re about to arrive at an easy explanation someone throws in a different opinion. Some maintain that rap is a kind of music, whereas hip-hop is a lifestyle — one that includes rap, break dancing, DJing, and graffiti art. Rap pioneer and sage KRS-One says simply, “Rap is something you do, but hip-hop is something you live.”…
Article comments
126 - Chris A
In my opinion Rap is an artist that rhyme about money, hoes and clothes. They don't try to elevate themselves or their music. They make music just to sell.
Hip-hop is an artist that can do both with consciousness. For example, one of the great rap groups Wu-Tang Clan rapped about money, hoes and clothes but still had a message in their music.
127 - D33Ks
There's been good rap since 2000. Hiero still strong.
128 - safwagate
I say like gonzo marx
Rap is something you do
Hip-Hop is something you are
129 - Eazy the hustla
Rap sucks!...i luv hip hop.itz a culture u live with,its inborn.tupac,biggie,nas,the outlawz,ja,game rep hiphop..suckers like soulja boy,ym crew,mike jones luk rap.
130 - RL Shokane
@Lalo- what you are saying is shit.......hip aint the teacher....rap came beofre hip hop and hip hop arose from rap ,created by people who failed to do rap
Rap is a poetry and tell a life story and how you feel inside, while hip hop is just a show off ,trying to show people what you have ,like money and girls
Rap is real while hip hop is fake
131 - Any mouse
Hip-hop= people like e-dubble and macklemore
Rap= lil Wayne and tyga and wiz kahlifa
132 - Pinnacle
Okay here's what I think: Hip Hop is a lifestyle, all about MCing/rapping, B-boying, DJing/scratching and graf. I believe that all rapping is hip hop, regardless if it lives up to the standard or not. Just because some artists took the rhythmic conversational singing style in rap and used it with other themes doesn't make it 'not' hip hop. Its just bad rap that's all.
133 - Solomon
Serious..? From all the differentiated opinions, it's all subjective, and from what I've read in the comments, most everyone agrees that Rap is music/sounds you don't like & hip hop is what personally do like.
Not much of a technical difference though, and who cares how a genre's music/sound is "technically constructed"; it still belongs to that genre. Not all music in any genre is note worthy so leave it at that and hip hop, rap, or even hip rap to your hearts content.
Oh, and use a little logic with reasoning so I ain't gotta school on all ya'll!
134 - Mika S.
Mr. Smiles may be ever-eloquent, but a biology lesson is in order. Alcohol suppresses ADH...in the end making you more dehydrated than you were to start with.
135 - Potential
Hip Hop is real. Hip Hop actually means 'intelligence movement'.
136 - Liam
I'm fascinated by how many definitions exist that seem to create strong distinctions between rap and hip-hop. Nitty Scott MC who seems to be an artist concerned with poetry, ideas, and old school quality rhyming that has meaning says in 'H.O.T' "This is hip hop, sir/I am hip hop her/Callin me a rapper that's a hip hop slur." Even though she's an MC, what many would call a "rapper," she seems to distance herself from the word rap and to embrace the term hip hop for what she does. It's so interesting how many artists themselves have conflicting visions of what these two terms mean.
137 - StopArguing -_-
Hip Hop is a culture.
Rap is part of that culture.
Neither is better than the other and both can have deep meaning. The image of both considers which artists/songs you listen to.
138 - Lyricist7
I agree with -Stop Arguing- as an emcee myself i personally write songs either just for fun or to actually portray meaning. No matter how you look at it it's all about the music.