This is a subject very dear to my heart, for like 16 years of my 18 years on this earth i lived and breathed rap and r and b and i know a lot of it is garbage, but some is good. And i hear a lot of you just quoting cliche things about rap which aint so. A lot of today's rap has good instrumentation in it(even though it might be 8 seconds of music looped over and over)but it's not just a drum machine a lot of today's rap has classical and spanish type vibe that's very good. For a while back in the 80's rappers just rapped over a drum and that was it. I can understand a lot of people listening to rap, i can understand myself listening to rap, you know in the hood that's basically all we were shown. No one really wants to reach out and embrace another type of music or anything different(i'm probally stilh the only one around my area who listens to rock) , if i hadn't picked up the guitar i don't think i would be listening to rock now and open to all types of music. The same type of judgement you say people pass against rock is the same type scenario you pass against rap, not knowing the all about it and can condemn it or say it's trash. It's all a respect thing. My bro is an awesome rapper and my uncle is one of the best old school rappers around. I think it's cool that i can respect my bro in what he does and he has much respect in what i do and in my abilty as a true musician, and that we can sit down and collab with me making tight beats together. And i'm sick of how people saying how rappers live, this that and the other, i mean it ain't really nobody's business what the heck the buy. Rock musicians have just as much and spend just as much money.