Ray Charles - "Rap is not music"

@shutupuface I can’t tell if your intention in quoting the definition of “music” was to refute someone saying rap is “music,” or to refute those who say it is not “music.”  
If it was the latter, bravo.  
If it was the former, then something quite embarrassing was just committed.

It’s amazing to me that anyone would outright dismiss the existence of something they merely don’t like. There are a million things I don’t like, but I can’t just say that Easy Cheese is “not food” just because I find it repulsive. It’s not a matter of debate. It is “food.” Of course it’s “food.”  
I agree with Scorsese that franchise/comic book movies suck. I wouldn’t say they “aren’t cinema.” Of course they’re technically “cinema.” They just really, really suck.

Are people willing to be consistent in their definition of “music?”

Is, say, Bo Diddley’s 1956 song “Who Do You Love,” a song where 100% of its verses are “rapping,” 100% of it is one chord, and aside from one beat of one measure in the chorus (the little fill after ‘whooo do you love…’) the percussion remains static/unchanged through the song, “music?” 

The criteria cited in deeming rap “not music” would then cause an enormous swath of our musical history to be deemed “not music” as well.

@davedead “I certainly find it difficult to imagine that Jerry had an intellectual blindness to any genre of music”

The great thing is you don’t have to “imagine” anything.  
You just posted a video wherein he explicitly demonstrates his intellectual blindness

I respect Ray Charles. But besides what he said about rap, he said some other things. Here are a few others:

"Racism and poverty. Two scourges that I have known since early in my life. Sadly, while things are better for many, there are those who still suffer the indignities of both.

Until we find a way to fix these problems, there will always be unrest in our society and world.”

Because I'm a black man, whatever affects my people affects me. This means that the greatest handicap I've had - and still have - is my color. 

If the blues ever gets sung by a White person, it'll be a Jew who does it. They've known what it is to be somebody else's footstool.

What I never understood to this day, to this very day, was how white people could have black people cook for them, make their meals, but wouldn't let them sit at the table with them. How can you dislike someone so much and have them cook for you? Shoot, if I don't like someone you ain't cooking nothing for me, ever.

Until every man in America can get any job he's qualified for or any house he's got the money to buy, regardless of his color, I'll always be handicapped. 

People want more and more and more, and some seem to have a need to look down on others, and they're bothered when no one's around to look down upon."
 

@tylermunns Ok, so I guess you found the road from rap to music that Jerry couldn't. Fair enough...

Rap is considered music not because of its merit, but because there is no other place to put it.  In my opinion, and based on its impact among a certain segment of society, rap is a particularly focused medium for social degeneracy.  This is by design.  Ask the real pioneers of Rap and Hip Hop and they'll tell you how their message was usurped and changed by the monied interest.