Ray Charles - "Rap is not music"

@tylermunns Easy. What percentage of Whites bought those records? A very few, otherwise Motown and Philly would have sold many many more records. Rock ruled the day. Some of that was great. Some not so. Nothing to do with rap. But why agree with Ray Charles when most weren’t buying his records either. That’s hypocrisy. Calling a spade a spade. Now call me racist for calling out the obvious.

'Back in the day', soul music was probably the most popular music outside of the Beatles and such, and before the Beatles, soul music totally dominated the pop charts.

Rap/hip-hop is hugely popular among all kinds of people, largely in their teens and 20's, but certainly expanding beyond that.

Anybody who thinks 'whites' are not into soul and hip-hop this obviously knows not of what they speak. 

As envisioned by its founder, Berry Gordy, the whole point of the Motown Sound was to have black artist crossover to white record buying consumers.  He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

@coltrane1 This discussion is on rap music.  
For some reason, you brought up “Motown and Philly soul.”  
Then, for some reason, you brought race into it (again).  
You, for some reason, said, with zero data and facts to back it up, that “very few white people” bought those records.  
I can hardly see your logic in tracing all this back to Ray Charles, let alone rap music.  
If I’m hearing you correctly, you’re saying, 
“because white people didn’t listen to Ray Charles, Motown and Philly soul in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, they are hypocrites to cite Ray Charles’ opinion on rap as evidence that ‘rap is not music.’”  

This is an avalanche of illogic.

How do we know? Because the entire Motown Music catalog sold for a paltry $61M.

Philly Soul sold to Sony Music in 2014, no price available.

But check this out. The top selling recordings all time are music created by whites. Not one black recording among them.

Perhaps black music was “popular”, but only via the radio? The facts don’t lie. Whites did not purchase Black music in large quantities.

No matter how popular it was, it didn’t actually sell in huge numbers. Blacks bought black music, but their purchase numbers could only reflect the numbers of their small population. Facts.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271174/top-selling-artists-in-the-united-states/#:~:text=Perhaps%20unsurprisingly%2C%20British%20rock%20band,Presley%20with%20139%20million%20units.