Might I start by saying that this is a very brave thread to make, even if it did get a little personal eventually. This was always going to turn in to a controversial issue, but at least there's some good debate mixed in there as well.

Now then, my CD collection is almost exclusively rock, or variants of rock. There might be a couple of movie soundtracks thrown in there, but I can certainly guarentee that there's no rap in there. There's not even anything close to rap, and that's the way I intend to keep it.

Nevertheless, I don't hate rap, or even dislike rap. As a matter of fact, I will actively listen to rap on the radio, sometimes (shock horror) ahead of rock music! The reason for this is very simple, rap is incredibly catchy. The beats, computer-generated and repetitive though they may be, stick in my mind. Certain lyrics amuse me. When it comes down to it, I'd rather listen to something mindless and catchy than something that obviously requires a lot of talent, but doesn't interest me. If talent were what I was looking for in my music, I'd do nothing but listen to Classic FM. In fact, this isn't the case, and I'll find myself listening to rap music from time to time.

That said, I'd never buy a rap artist's album, since it just doesn't have the lasting appeal to make me buy it. That sums up rap pretty well, in my view. It's good as background music, catchy to listen to, but simply not with enough substance to maintain lasting appeal. Does this make it bad music? Of course not. Like any other form of entertainment, it simply can't appeal to everyone, and cannot compete with other genres for my attention. For millions of other people, the situation is different, and rap music is their favoured genre. This alone suggests that rap music has to be doing something right, or else nobody would like it at all.

Of course, there's rap that I consider to be bad, and that I wouldn't listen to. But then the same is true of any genre. I'll take good rap over bad rock any day, and I'll gladly skip over K-DST and Radio X while playing GTA: San Andreas to listen to some of the catchy hip-hop tunes on Radio Los Santos. I simply don't like the rock/alternative music of the period, and therefore don't listen to it. I may like the genre as a whole, but none of the songs included are good examples of it, so I just don't listen. To summarise, I'm not a rap fan, but I listen to certain rap music over rock, because I consider neither genre to be completely good or bad.

If you hate rap, that's fine by me, whatever your reasons. But it seems to me that 'hating' a genre for the commonly cited reasons is a bit petty. You're free to listen to whatever you like, and it isn't like rap is being forced upon you. It may be all over the mainstream radio, yes, but that doesn't mean it can't be avoided. Simply don't touch those radio stations. Focus on what you like, instead of what you don't. It's no use blaming the artist for making bad music, when all you have to do is press a button to make it go away.