I was a huge rap fan back in my teen years during the west coast gangsta era in the early 90's. As the 90's progressed, I lost complete interest in the genre and moved to rock exclusively.

A buddy of mine in college was completely into rap, and sort of rekindled what I had completely dismissed. Since he was so completely into rap, I decided to play some Vai for him (figuring he'd hate it) just to start the ol' rap sucks debate. I still remember his post-Vai reply verbatim, "Good is Good".

That still sticks with me because he was listening to the music void of any preconceived notions. Since then I've adopted that policy and stopped prejudging bands and their music before I get a thorough chance to give it a fair trial.