I listen to a lot of it (or them.) And to me, the two terms have been fairly synonymous. But I like a lot of different kinds of music and art so my attention is divided. Can anybody out there that loves the music more than me tell me: Is there a difference between rap and hip-hop? And if so what is it?

If anything I kind of thought rap was a part of hip-hop, along with the other elements of the culture (DJing, beatboxing, breakdancing, tagging, etc.) But some people seem to make it out like there's a difference in quality between the two, or aesthetic or purpose or something. But I'm rambling.

Rap is a vocal style, and Hip-Hop is a culture, as such thats the way I always looked at it.Rap has mixed pretty extensively with electronic and even metal music, and its pretty obvious that Rap and Hip-Hop don't have to go hand and hand all the time.

TBH I don't know how to define Hip-Hop as a music genre, or what Hip-Hop should sound like.I just listen to an artist and kind of know his/her genre.

I tend to refer to mainstream, girly, pop "rap" as hip-hop. I didn't use any logic to come to that terminology, that's just kind of the name I've adopted for it.

Turenne's got the right idea here. Interestingly enough, Jglass, back when I was in middle school, I had a similar definition of hip-hop. Now that I'm much, much more familiar with the music and the culture, I call the shit on the radio rap (or hip-pop), because I feel it lacks the substance to deserve to be called hip-hop.

"rap is something you do, hip hop is something you live"

-KRS One

but basically yeah, what Turenne said