In the first sense of the term, hip-hop refers collectively to a group of related art forms in different media (visual, sound, movement) that were practiced in Afro-Caribbean, African American, and Latino neighborhoods in New York City in the 1970s. The term, when used in this sense, also refers to the events at which these forms were practiced, the people who practiced them, their shared aesthetic sensibility, and contemporary activities that maintain those traditions.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this variety of hip-hop is that it is unmediated, in the sense that most of the practices associated with it are both taught and performed in the context of face-to-face interactions between human beings. To some degree, this constitutes an intentional rejection of the mass media by its practitioners, but to a great extent it is just the natural result of the practices themselves. Activities like b-boying and graffiti writing are simply not well suited to the mass media. Although in both cases, brief attempts were made to bring these forms of expression into mainstream contexts (b-boying in a series of low-budget “breaksploition” movies in the early 1980s and graffiti as part of a short-lived gallery trend around the same time), neither developed substantially in those environments. This, it has been suggested, was not so much because the forms lacked appeal, but because—on an economic level—b-boying was an advertisement with no product. This reality is reflected in the phrase that is often used to refer to this branch of hip-hop: “hip-hop culture,” which suggests something that is lived rather than bought and sold.

The second sense of the term hip-hop refers to a form of popular music that developed, or was developed, out of hip-hop culture. This hip-hop, also known as “rap music,” resulted from the interaction between hip-hop culture and the preexisting music industry. As we would expect, this hip-hop features elements of both sensibilities. My students are often surprised when I point out that, even when hip-hop lyrics seem to reject every aspect of mainstream culture and morality, the one thing they almost never reject is a strict 16-bar verse structure derived from Tin Pan Alley pop music. But this should not be surprising. This hip-hop, in contrast to hip-hop culture, is deeply intertwined with the mass media and its needs, largely because it does have a product: records, CDs, MP3s, and ringtones.

It wasn’t until I was nine years old, late in 1979, that I even heard the words “hip” and “hop” strung together or was able to grasp the notion of what being a rapper actually meant. That was when, fatefully, I heard a record that changed my life (and pop culture) forever.

Like it’s yesterday, I can still remember that moment over at my aunt’s home in Brooklyn—where it seemed there was always a party under way with relatives and neighbors hanging out, a great spread of food, and new, hot music on the record player. Most stereo systems in those days could be adapted for the single two-sided records that were smaller and had the big hole in the middle (45 RPM) as well as the bigger records with the small holes (33⅓ RPM)—which were the full albums that had several songs on each side.

But as the intro plays to what I recognize as “Good Times” by the group Chic and I’m drawn into the living room because it’s a familiar hit song from the previous summer, I encounter a record on the turntable that defies categorization. Instead of the sweet female lead vocals of that disco smash, I hear something totally different and spot a baby-blue label on the black vinyl record I’ve never seen before. Even though it’s a twelve-inch disc, the size of an album, as I listen to the rhyming words being spoken—“Singin’ on ’n’ ’n’ on ’n’ on / The beat don’t stop until the break of dawn / Singin’ on ’n’ ’n’ on ’n’ on on ’n’ on / Like a hot buttered a pop da pop da pop dibbie dibbie pop da pop pop / Ya don’t dare stop”—it hits me that this entire side is one long song.

Almost fifteen minutes long as it turns out. Or, to be exact, fourteen minutes and thirty-six seconds of pure fun laid over the thumping bass beat from the break of “Good Times” with sing-along words easy to remember and repeat. The record, I discover, is by an unknown group, the Sugarhill Gang, and is called “Rapper’s Delight.”

From then on, nobody ever has to tell me what rap is. It’s whatever words are spoken, chanted, or talk-sung, or whatever philosophies, stories, or ideas are espoused, by the house party Master of Ceremonies.