With all the attention focused on the alleged 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop culture, recognition must be given to the media outlets that have promoted it since its infancy. A recent interview with the co-curator of The Universal Hip-Hop Museum, Prime Minister Pete Nice, revealed that the very first time the term “Hip-Hop” ever appeared in any publication was right here within the prestigious pages of The New York Amsterdam News.
“A lot of people don’t realize that the term ’Hip-Hop’ did not show up as early as 1973. Actually, there’s a flyer from 1979 from Brooklyn which first put ’Hip-Hop’ on a flyer, on printed matter,” he explained. “But, in journalism and periodicals, Paradise (Gray, UHHM chief curator) and I tracked down an item from the Amsterdam News in December 1979. Alton B Chase, a Bronx politician, threw an MC contest which The Furious Five attended.”
The author, Colis Davis, did not realize they were making history at the time by having their ears to the streets, but the AmNews has a long history of trendsetting and covering new ground regarding Black culture.
“A news article ran the first week of January 1980, and the writer referenced ’Hip-Hop, the world of Hip-Hop, Hip-Hopers,’ several times in that article. So we looked at that as the first time in journalism that Hip-Hop as a term was memorialized.”
He goes on to mention a couple of other articles which previously were believed of as breaking the ice in 1981. This “was not correct,” he explained. “We found this one. Peace to the AmNews. There’s a lot of buried gems and hidden hip-hop history within the AmNews, and it’s a great resource for hip-hop researchers and archivists.”
The New York Amsterdam News has contributed to Black culture perhaps more than any other Black newspaper (the only paper on its level of historical importance is the Chicago Defender). One of the Amsterdam News’s greatest landmarks was its printing the second earliest occurrence of the term “hip hop.” Yes, second earliest. I am sorry to have to inform you that your claim of having printed the first earliest occurrence of “hip hop” is just not true. An article by Robert Flipping Jr. in the New Pittsburgh Courier, February 24, 1979, stated: “D.J. Starsky [printed Starksy], one of the more prominent New York based disc jockeys … is responsible for the derivation of the ‘Hip-Hop’.” Your use of the term was dated January 1980.