The word hip-hop is primarily used to denote to two different, if also partly overlapping, phenomena. On one hand a music genre, and on the other hand wider a multidisciplinary subculture: Emceeing. DJing. Breaking. Graffiti. There is however a debate on the relations between these elements of hip-hop. Some scholars have described the concept of four elements in terms of a fallacy, for example claiming that hip-hop and graffiti are fundamentally different cultural contexts. A common issue, or conflict, is thus if graffiti should – or should not – be framed as hip hop.

In order to go beyond such conflicts, this chapter treats ‘hip-hop’ as a meta-concept – denoting a vast, complex and multifaceted cultural landscape. Considering the historical, social, geographical and disciplinary variety, there will most likely always be possible to find arguments confirming contradictory descriptions of hip-hop. Thus, instead of scrutinizing possible definitions of hip hop, the chapter surveys a number of the visual and textual concepts produced, distributed and used within the cultural and artistic practices possibly labelled hip hop.

By looking at various mass-mediated cultural artefacts – lyrics, record covers, typography, concert posters, journalism, pedagogical material – a number of concepts are identified, such as bite, burn, b-boy, flow, rhyme, and style. The chapter argues that hip-hop could be described as a ‘conceptual assemblage’ – where the complex understanding is based in a number of core-concepts, and suggest that their meanings are negotiated, rejected, grouped together, evoked in time and space.