Come on, Joan/Ruth- how on earth was I going to figure out you were Joan/Ruth if you didn't enter a name?? As I said, I am NOT omniscient...yet.

I'm afraid I cannot in all conscience feign sufficient interest in rap to engage with you or anyone else on the subject, and I will happily bow to anybdy's superior knowledge on the topic.

I'm not aware that I've made any statements which negate or belittle the historical context of traditional music. If anything, I raised the issue of whether the writers of trad folk songs considered their songs to be folk songs in an attempt to put the discussion into some kind of historical context. My point being, if they themselves didn't necessarily consider themselves folksingers, who are we to limit the concept of folk to their songs?