Hoopty?

[Grant Barrett]

>The oldest hit I've seen on Dejanews is August 2000.

Since Google stupidly bought the Dejanews content but not the Dejanews equipment,
technology or expertise, the Dejanews archive is no longer a reliable search tool for
words, usages, etc. The current online archive only goes back to August 2000, thus
your results. I hope they do put the old archives back up, eventually.

The online OED returns no results.

I seem to remember a hip-hop song from the late Eighties or early Nineties that
featured this word, but I can't find it for certain. The Hip-Hop Archives
<http://www.hiphoparchives.com/> and The Original Hip-Hop Archives <http://www.ohhla.com/> provide
some insight into the word "hoopty" and all cites confirm that it means, loosely,
"automobile." I matched the search results against a reliable database (Amazon) to know
album release dates:

Artist: A Tribe Called Quest
Song: 8 Million Stories
Album: Midnight Marauders
Original Release Date: 1993

A search on Google for "hoopty and nigga" (to eliminate all those automobile ads)
turns up lyrics for the song "Bright as the Sun" from the album "Gangsta's Paradise"
released November 7, 1995. Hoopty is spelled "whoopty."

Artist: Spice 1
Album:  Original Gangsta's Soundtrack
Song:   Slugs
Audio CD UK Import edition (April 8, 1996)

Artist: Twista
Album:  Adrenaline Rush
Song:   Unsolved Mystery
Original Release Date: 1997

Artist: E-40
Album:  The Element of Surprise
Song:   Dump, Bust, Blast
Original Release Date: August 11, 1998


--
Grant Barrett
New York loves you back.
http://www.worldnewyork.org/