A supervisor at one of my former workplaces once told me, "I don't like rap. Rap is not music."
"Actually, it is music," I replied. "As with any genre, though, some of it is bad music."
"No, rap is not music," she repeated. "I decree it is not music."
I didn't argue any further but thought, "Talk about an 'ears of the beholder' format..."
Shortly after that exchange, I remembered a conversation I'd had in college with a noncommercial FM DJ.
"When I was going through the training process to become a DJ, someone passed out rap tapes at a music meeting," she said. "At the time, I said, 'The day I own a rap tape is the day Hell freezes over,' and I really hurt someone's feelings."
She said that while rap didn't become her favorite type of music, she came to at least respect some of it, the more she listened to it.
I thought her open-minded change of heart was admirable. I still think, however, that rap and country are probably two of the most divisive genres for a lot of listeners when determining what is and isn't music.
