When rap came out 30 years ago I thought it was just a fad

I said that in my opinion there were statements made in this thread that could be construed as racist or biased.

Rap is not music is an entirely different issue.

This was set off  (by spacing) as one thought:

There's very real cultural/racial bias in this thread.
1. Rap is not music.
2. Creators of rap are somehow not as good as regular humans (whatever that means).

What else could you have meant?  If the A-gon members who said either of the two things are not culturally/racially biased, then who did you mean?

Rap reminds me of the Beatniks, I didn't like them either. Both are like some sort of word association for the uninitiated in their respected crafts. 

Then, again, I was too young to appreciate the Beatniks and am now too old to appreciate Rap. There's something to be said to be born at the right time. :-)

All the best,
Nonoise

You may be on to something, nonoise.  I watched the last 20-25 minutes of a Kendrick Lamar ACL concert last night on tv.  He seemed talented and earnest and he had a combo of apparently talented musicians behind him.  I say "apparently" because they mostly played very pedestrian music behind his rap except for about one minute of a really good keyboard solo.  The crowd of 2700 loved every minute of the show (or the part I saw).  Oh, and the crowd seemed to be 99% white people, so I'm not sure which race or culture I must be biased against. 

I've been silent since early in this thread when I stated that I was listening to Rap in the early days. After seeing this thread going in circles, I have to say that I agree with calvinj's statements.
My earlier statement....

For me, it goes back to 1980ish with The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Anybody who's heard their song "The Message" knows what real Rap is about. These were a group of young Black men from the South Bronx with a social and political message about growing up on the mean streets.
For close to two decades, groups with a message such as Public Enemy, NWO, Run DMC (who were more tongue in cheek), Kool Moe Dee, Salt-n-Pepa, LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg, Tupac in the 90s and so many others produced rhythmic and lyrical music. Some were political/social statements and some were just fun.

This is what calvinj has been saying, that Rap was the only way these groups had to express themselves. And people took notice. Back then it wasn't about dissing women and who spent the most time in jail. I call it music and a good part of it is performance art. Today's Rap has morphed into some bad formula music that I do not like.
Tastes change and mature and I listen to Classical now, but I kept my old Rap CDs and 12 inches.

This discussion reminds me of when I was involved in the punk rock movement in the late 70s, NYC. People said that wasn't music. It's funny that the white kids who were into Punk and New Wave (post-punk) all welcomed the Rap movement of the 80s. But when we were that age, we were open-minded.