The word "hip" was used as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as early as 1904. The colloquial language meant "informed" or "current," and was likely derived from the earlier form hep.

Keith "Cowboy" Wiggins, a rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five has been credited with the coining of the term hip hop in 1978 while teasing a friend who had just joined the US Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers. Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance. The group frequently performed with disco artists who would refer to this new type of MC / DJ produced music by calling them "those hip-hoppers". The name was originally meant as sign of disrespect, but was soon came to identify this new music and culture. Other artists quickly copied the Furious Five and began using the term in their music; for example the opening of the song "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang in addition the verse found on Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's own "Supperrappin", both released in 1979. Lovebug Starski, and DJ Hollywood then began using the term when referring to this new disco rap music. Hip hop pioneer and South Bronx community leader Afrika Bambaataa also credits Lovebug Starski, a Bronx DJ who put out a single called "The Positive Life" in 1981, as the first to use of the term "Hip Hop," as it relates to the culture. Bambaataa, a former Black Spades gang member also did much to further popularize the term.

Jamaican born DJ Clive "Kool Herc" Campbell is credited as originating hip hop music, in the Bronx, New York, after moving to New York at the age of thirteen. Herc created the blueprint for hip hop music and culture by building upon the Jamaican tradition of toasting, or boasting impromptu poetry and sayings over music, which he witnessed as a child in Jamaica.

Herc and other DJs would tap into the power lines to connect their equipment and perform, at venues such as public basketball courts and the historic building "where hip hop was born," 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York. Their equipment was composed of huge stacks of speakers, turntables, and one or more microphones.Herc was also the developer of break-beat deejaying, where the breaks of funk songs—the part most suited to dance, usually percussion-based—were isolated and repeated for the purpose of all-night dance parties. This breakbeat DJing, using hard funk, rock, and records with Latin percussion, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell's announcements and exhortations to dancers would lead to the syncopated, rhymed spoken accompaniment we now know as rapping. He dubbed his dancers break-boys and break-girls, or simply b-boys and b-girls. According to Herc, "breaking" was also street slang for "getting excited" and "acting energetically".Herc's terms b-boy, b-girl and breaking became part of the lexicon of hip hop culture, before that culture itself had developed a name.

Later DJs such as Grand Wizard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash and Jazzy Jay refined and developed the use of breakbeats, including cutting and scratching.The approach used by Herc was soon widely copied, and by the late 1970s DJs were releasing 12" records where they would rap to the beat. Popular tunes included Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks (song)", and The Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight."

Emceeing is the rhythmic spoken delivery of rhymes and wordplay, delivered over a beat or without accompaniment. Rapping is derived from the griots (folk poets) of West Africa, and Jamaican-style toasting. Rap developed both inside and outside of hip hop culture, and began with the street parties thrown in the Bronx neighborhood of New York in the 1970s by Kool Herc and others. It originated as MCs would talk over the music to promote their DJ, promote other dance parties, take light-hearted jabs at other lyricists, or talk about problems in their areas and issues facing the community as a whole.

Melle Mel, a rapper/lyricist with The Furious Five, is often credited with being the first rap lyricist to call himself an "MC".

Hip hop as a culture was further defined in 1983, when Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force released a track called "Planet Rock." Instead of simply rapping over disco beats, Bambaataa created an innovative electronic sound, taking advantage of the rapidly improving drum machine and synthesizer technology. The appearance of music videos changed entertainment: they often glorified urban neighborhoods.The music video for Planet Rock showcased the subculture of hip hop musicians, graffiti artists and breakdancers. Many hip hop-related films were released between 1983 and 1985, among them Wild Style, Beat Street, Krush Groove, Breakin, and the documentary Style Wars.

These films expanded the appeal of hip hop beyond the boundaries of New York. By 1985, youth worldwide were laying down scrap linoleum or cardboard, setting down portable "boombox" stereos and spinning on their backs in Adidas tracksuits and sneakers to music by Run DMC, LL Cool J, the Fat Boys, Herbie Hancock, EPMD, Soulsonic Force, Jazzy Jay, Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Stetsasonic, just to name a few. The hip hop artwork and "slang" of US urban communities quickly found its way to Europe and Asia, as the culture's global appeal took root.

The 1980s also saw many artists make social statements through hip hop. In 1982, Melle Mel and Duke Bootee recorded "The Message" (officially credited to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five), a song that foreshadowed the socially conscious statements of Run-DMC's "It's like That" and Public Enemy's "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos."

During the 1980s, hip hop also embraced the creation of rhythm by using the human body, via the vocal percussion technique of beatboxing. Early pioneers such as Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie, and Buffy from the Fat Boys made beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using their mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and other body parts. "Human Beatbox" artists would also sing or imitate turntablism scratching or other instrument sounds.

Hip hop is a cultural movement which developed in New York City in the 1970s primarily among African Americans.Its four main elements are rapping, DJing, graffiti, and b-boying (breakdancing). Other elements include beat boxing, hip hop fashion, and slang. Since first emerging in The Bronx, the lifestyle of hip hop culture has spread around the world.

When hip hop music began to emerge, it was based around DJs who created rhythmic beats by looping breaks (smalls portions of songs emphasizing a percussive pattern) on two turntables. This was later accompanied by "rapping" (a rhythmic style of chanting). An original form of dancing, and particular styles of dress, arose among followers of this new music. These elements experienced considerable refinement and development over the course of the history of the culture. The relationship between graffiti and hip hop culture arises from the appearance of new and increasingly elaborate and pervasive forms of the practice in areas where other elements of hip hop were evolving as art forms, with a heavy overlap between those who wrote and those who practiced other elements of the culture. Beatboxing is a mainly percussive vocal form in which various technical effects of hip hop DJs are imitated.