Jeeaz, looking at the last couple of posts, what gives? Is the average age here twelve?

Just because you don't like a given form, doesn't mean it can be dismissed in it's entirity as 'shit' or 'crap'... and there's a very strong argument that rap is far more the "folk music" of the communities that created it than a bunch of white middle-class singer songwriters with acoustic guitars could ever be the folk music of their communities. In fact I would also argue that most white western middle class (and working class for that matter) communities probably don't have a folk music of any description any more, it having been almost completely replaced by popular commercial music a good fifty years ago. Rap is also, I would have thought, far more "folk" than the museum keepers of UK trad could ever hope to be. Much as the latter is my kind of music, it's largely a historical specialism kept going by hobbyists, rather than "folk" music in any meaningful sense beyond what it's become - genre.

In fact, there is an argument that the entire folk revival is hobbyism as a placebo for the lack of strong folk medicine in the societies where revival has been required.

But that's just me. I tend to either like or dislike the music under discussion and have less of a concern about what box to put it in. Though I understand why some have a need to do this.