Hip-hop as genre is young. Many think hip-hop is an all encompassing umbrella which things like rap, ska, funk, etc. fall under. It is a very specific genre. When searching for hip-hop the earliest publication I could find was from 1984, it was titled African Music Sweeps London (AFRICAN MUSIC SWEEPS LONDON. (1984, 10). The Reggae & African Beat, 3, 27-28. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/217503554?accountid=14541).
Hip-hop owes its origin to the Roland TR-808 drum. Hitting the market in the 80’s the drum was ultimately a failure in the market; however, its low cost made an otherwise expensive instrument attainable for lower-income households.
If you take a look at the Ngram for hip-hop and the Ngram for the 808 drum you can see the graphs rise almost in unison. The sound of the 808 drum has not died out of hip hop popularity even almost 30 years later.
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<iframe name=”ngram_chart” src=”https://books.google.com/ngrams/interactive_chart?content=808+drum&year_start=1900&year_end=2018&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2C808%20drum%3B%2Cc0″ width=900 height=500 marginwidth=0 marginheight=0 hspace=0 vspace=0 frameborder=0 scrolling=no></iframe>