Your Questions About Gardening

Why do people depend on Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary for their definition of Hip-Hop, as opposed to Rap?

There seem to be two schools of thought on the subject:

1) Those who believe Hip-Hop can refer to either the entire movement, or simply to the music associated with it. The general belief is that as rap has grown, it has transcended the boundaries of Hip-hop. Therefore, they differentiate between Hip-Hop and Rap.

2) Those who believe rap is one of the four (or five, depending on who you ask) elements of Hip-Hop, and therefore cannot be separated from Hip-Hop.

My question mainly is about people’s inclination to pull definitions of the two words from websites like Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary. It is my understanding that any Joe Blow who signs up for an account with them can add, edit, alter, or delete articles/definitions on these sites at any time. Therefore, they tend to be little more than millions of people adding what they *believe* they know about everything topic or term under the Sun.

Who depends on these sites for hard information in general, not just on the Hip-Hop vs. Rap argument? Who agrees with what these sites list? How many believe that none of the contributors to these websites got it quite right? How do you PERSONALLY define “Rap” and “Hip-Hop” (in your own words, without help from other sources)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rap
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rap
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hip+hop

What role did your parents play(if any) in you becoming an RHH (or music in general) head?

Inspired by a trip I took back to my parent’s place and my Dad GIVING me a crate of vinyl that had Joni Mitchell “Mingus” Shuggie Otis “Inspiration Information” Ornette Coleman “the Shape of Jazz to come” and probably the most valuable of the crate the Original Dixieland Jazz Band recordings that was passed down from my Grandparents to my parents and now to me.

Hip Hop was probably the only genre that I actively sought out myself, had to cuz my parents considered it noise.
You know an easy way to identify a sample tho? Ask your Ma Dukes man, hasn’t failed me yet.

Tell me about the music you were raised on, did your parents try to get you to appreciate their music? Or are you a music head now because of your own doing? No better answer here, just trying to gauge if a child is better off being raised to appreciate music or to grow to appreciate it themselves.
RHH=Rap & Hip Hop

Do you think Hip hop is at a stage where artists do not have to be from a poor background?

What I mean by that is do you think Hip-Hop is at a stage where if an artist is not from a poor background but has skills and talks about his or her own trials and tribulations, would that be respected? Or a poor background is a must to be taken seriously in the Hip Hop industry. Personally I for one feel if your talented and talk about you own growing pains and not act like something your not I respect that.