OED online says
orig. U.S.
[f. hip, reduplicated with alteration of vowel as a jingling refrain
(see quots. 19822, 1984), perh. influenced by HIP a.; cf. BEBOP n.,
HOP n.2]
...
1982 N.Y. Times 3 Sept. C4/6 He [sc. D. J. Hollywood] phrased to the
beat of a funk record and paced himself with a repeating refrain,
usually..a variation on the nonsense formula `hip, hop,
hip-hip-de-hop'.]
1984 S. HAGER Hip Hop 109/2 Hip hopfunky music suitable for rapping; a
collective term used to describe rap/graffiti/breaking/scratchin'. The
term was invented by Starski, who used to chant: `To the hip hop, hip
hop, don't stop that body rock.'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Dec 05 2001 - 15:38:46 MET