I see these terms bandied about quite freely and have always considered them one in the same.

Hip-hop is a lifestyle/pop-culture movement that includes MCing, DJing, graffiti, break-dancing and necklaces made out of clocks.

Rap is a style of verbal performance practiced by MCs that is part of hip-hop.

/Grand Wizard Theodore in the documentary "Scratch" as quoted by a nerd who knows next to nothing about rap and hip-hop (me)

I could be way off base here but I thought that Hip Hop was the broader category that Rap was under. Hip Hop includes all of the other stuff like the dancing, djing and original drum/bass beats while Rap is just the emceeing.

hip-hop is much broader than rap. the essential element of hip-hop to me is a DJ, there may or may not be an mc rapping. there's a lot of overlap and the commercial varieties of both utterly suck imho, but there's a lot of amazing hip-hop out there that very few people will ever hear.

edit: wow, you guys are fast.

To put it very, very simply:

* Hip/Hop is a culture and a lifestyle.

* Rap is just one aspect of hip/hop.

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when I hear kids say "The beastie boys are hip/hop....not rap!" I wanna laugh then smack them upside their heads

I think we've done this before.

Hip Hop is an umbrella that other styles fall under, like rap, R&B etc.

much like Rock is an umbrella to which specific styles fall under. i.e. Modern, Classic, Heavy Metal, Prog, etc.

I would think that R&B is the umbrella which hip-hop falls under. I don't think Nina Simone would consider herself hip hop.

What is the difference between rap and hip-hop?

No.

How so? R&B has been around far longer than the term hip hop. I'm using the term R&B in reference to guys like Ray Charles and Chuck Berry, not the modern day interpretation.

Forget it, I think i misinterpreted your statement.