It’s “Hip Hop,” Not “hip-hop”

Authors

Tasha Iglesias, University of California, RiversideFollow
Travis Harris, Hampton UniversityFollow

Abstract

“It’s ‘Hip Hop,’ Not ‘hip-hop’” explains how two Hip Hop scholars, Tasha Iglesias and Travis Harris, collaborated to get the official academic spelling of Hip Hop changed from “hip-hop” to “Hip Hop.” While they were graduate students, they grew frustrated with reading numerous academic texts that did not represent Hip Hop in the same way the culture did outside of academia. Iglesias and Harris are Hip Hop and involved with the culture outside of the classroom. The clash between these two worlds led them to petition the American Psychological Association and eventually speak with Merriam Webster dictionary to change the spelling. In September 2019, APA put out a statement regarding hyphens and proper nouns thereby allowing “hip-hop” to be spelled “Hip Hop.” This article includes two primary sources, the official statement Harris and Iglesias co-authored and the email exchanges with APA and Merriam Webster.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.34718/c8gm-6j27

Volume

9

Issue

1

Recommended Citation

Iglesias, Tasha and Harris, Travis (2022) "It’s “Hip Hop,” Not “hip-hop”," Journal of Hip Hop Studies: Vol. 9: Iss. 1, Article 8.
Available at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/jhhs/vol9/iss1/8