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

Remember Blondie's Rapture? As a white kid growing up in the country, that was my first exposure to rap. Up until that point, I didn't even know it existed. When we first heard that song, we were thinking "What the hell is all the talking for? She's not even singing anymore." We thought she had lost her voice and was disguising it by using a delivery method that didn't require the ability to hit and hold notes.

Rap to me is street poetry. It can be artful or awful. It can combine real music done with real talent, or not.

The one thing about it that that makes it very popular is that, like video games, it can be picked up and performed by the completely talentless. It doesn't even require a real band, so it is much easier to create and sell. It's perfect for movies because you don't have to pay a real composer for a real score and then pay a producer to hire an orchestra to play it, record it, master it, etc. Think of the soundtrack overhead of the 50s and 60s. All the overhead that used to go to paying for real music can now go to promotion. Puff someone up with a cool name, cool clothes and a fake persona, shout a bad poem in time to the synthesized beat and you're in business. All you need is someone delusional enough to perform and not realize that they really suck, and there are plenty of them. They all want to believe they are special. That's what young narcissistic people do and now they have an avenue to do it that doesn't require actually singing a note.

It's really pretty brilliant. It's modern marketing through and through: Make crap, sell it for the same or higher price and pocket the difference.

Whipsaw, there's a lot of music that I don't like.  But I don't say that it's not music.  I simply don't believe rap possesses the melodic element required.  If you're not going to have the melodic or harmonic element you'd better have some pretty interesting rhythm happening. 
If a "beat" poet recites with bongos accompanying, is that music or just a guy reciting poetry with percussion behind it?  Isn't that  essentially what rap is?
BTW,  again you insult my power of reasoning.  Why?  It certainly doesn't help your case.  I've heard rap as long as it's been around.  I keep listening and I keep thinking.  Again, the fact that I don't care for it is not the reason I don't think it qualifies as music.  You're jumping to conclusions.

Tostadosunidos, to say that rap isn't part of rock and roll is historically incorrect.

I appreciate all the interesting comments on this thread. When someone said that 95% of the rappers can't play an Instrument that really summed it up for me. Rap to me is like Porn. It's the easiest way to get your 15 minutes of fame.

onhwy61, I think rap is part of rock and roll tangentially--certain rock songs have rap elements. And what all is rock and roll? Is disco rock and roll? Is Motown rock and roll? I don’t even think a lot of the Beatles’ catalog is rock and roll--certainly a lot of it is. And of course there’s a lot of material that could be argued either way. I’m personally baffled by some of the people voted into the rock and roll hall of fame--not because they are not great artists, but because they didn’t play rock and roll or weren’t part of the pre-rock influences. Which is different from thinking someone doesn’t belong there because of the value of their music.