You can't define Street Cred. You know it when you see it. Jay-Z has it. Basketball player Stephon Marbury personifies street cred. Brooklyn bred, handle born in the streets, just the right inflection in his speech, the can't-F-with-me strut. The little things. But he's also got an aspect of street cred that no worthy hipster can be without: mystery.

Commanding a level of respect in an urban environment due to experience in or knowledge of issues affecting those environments

A series of points you gain within the 12-30 black year old community in order to gain respect:

5 point- Born black
5 point- Born in a single parent home
10 points- Born poor
50 points- Sold 'Hard' drugs.. crack, cocaine, Heroin
65 points- Been shot and survived
75 points- Been shot multiple times and survived
70 points- Gang member of crips or bloods
65 points- Been to prison
40 points- Been to Jail
20 points- Have at least 10 tattoos
20 points- Kicked out of high school or dropped out
20 points- 16 years old and have a baby mama
-75 Points- Born rich
-50 Points- Speak proper English
-60 Points- Have white friends
-5 Points- Born white
-95 Points- Born in a safe neighborhood
-100 Points- No criminal record
-40 Points- Live with both parents
-35 Points- Smile when someone takes your photo
-60 Points- Straight A student
-2000 Points- Born in Utah, Maine, New Hampshire, Montana or Arizona.

1. your "coolness" factor
2. imaginary "points" you get when you do something cool

short for street credibility
(n)- repsect from urban communities. usually something essential for making it big in the rap world. it is wrongly percieved as being a straight up gansta or committing crimes. street cred is something one can earn, even a rich kid or suburb-dweller. if you have went through a tough childhood or life but have worked hard to make something of yourself (like me), then you can earn street cred, even if you are not from the streets. if ghetto kids like a rap artist who started out rich, but rapped about important things in life and is simply a good rapper, then that rapper has street cred. if you buy a rap album just because the rapper is gansta, then you are fuck...

A term mainly used by whites to make them sound more black. Typically used to sound more thuggish, like they are from the streets when really they are most likely from a middle-class suburb family and have maybe smoked pot. Most likely the worst they have done is they got caught with a fake ID. Caution: people who claim to have 'street cred' probably have not spent any time on the street other than doing shopping downtown.

Also, people who try to pretend like they know how to live on the streets to sound cool obviously have not lived on the streets and probably have some issues.

A term originated from upper middle class and corporate America to try to establish an achievement system on any act that sounds or seems "urban" or "ghetto" that they ultimately don't understand or have had no real life experience in.

Someone who grew up in a non-sheltered white boy neighborhood who had to fight claw and scratch his way to respectability and therefore has the credentials to be a self-sufficient person in this tough world. And by the way, anybody can have street cred. Anybody who had a rough childhood and tough upbringing and still managed to make something respectable out of their lives - they have street cred because they know what it takes to be succesful in this tough world.