I think it's easy to judge a music or style by the small window through which we are exposed to it. If you are a hard rocker, would you like every judgement of the music to be based in Poison? Not that Poison is a bad thing but is it the band you would choose to best represent hard rock? Probably not.

Yet rock folks judge hip hop based on the most cartoonish aspects. I'm not sure that's fair.

We say that sampling is not music. Stealing small bits of music to assemble a song. Yet Jimmy page lifted many, many licks from his influences...and we call him a genius. We say that hip hop is not singing because it's not melodic. Yet we call the drummer a musician even though definitionally a rhythm instrument is not melodic.

We find many excuses to justify the opinion when, in the simplest terms, why not just say; it's not to my taste.

There are hard rock bands that are not to my taste either. Do I need a justification? No. Nor should anyone if they don't enjoy hip hop.

However, I think the justifications are more than about a personal opinion. It seems that such a thing might be used to denigrate the medium, the music style.

It's not up to me to be the arbiter of what is good or music. It's up to the listener. I may not be the target audience for hip hop so I shouldn't really insert an opinion in to something that does not communicate to me.

I will admit that I do like some old school hip hop but I'm old and I like old school rock and metal too...Stopped caring about much new hard rock music a while ago. Part of aging.

I like the originators of hip hop or NWA and LL Cool J. They take up a small portion of my MP3 player but they are there.

I'm sure that my point is crystal clear but to put a sharper point on it; I'm not sure it's valid to categorically dismiss a popular music with the pretense that it doesn't agree with you. It's entertainment and it doesn't have to agree with you.