This is one topic I love discussing, I'm not going to talk about what genre is better because quite frankly that's silly because it's opinion based. This is a topic that could lead to arguments and I always find myself feeling obligated to defend hip-hop music. Over the years, I have gained a huge appreciation for rock music. What I want to touch on is how I became to love both genres.         Growing up in predominantly black neighborhoods, made me look at rock & roll music a lot differently than I do now. When you grow up in a household and come up in neighborhoods that only listen to hip-hop & R&B, one could understand why someone like me was lost when somebody mentioned rock music. Which I was lost for many years, but always enjoyed the music. I would hear rock & roll when watching movies or commercial and thought to myself, that was a cool tune, but not really anyone I could discuss it with because that wasn't their cup of tea. Fast forward to now, I do my homework on rock music all the time, to the point that when I hear a song I like I have to find out who that particular artist is.       Hip-hop & R&B is my introduction to loving music the way I do. That's why I always feel the need to defend it. Let me preference my comments by saying I do enjoy some of the hip-hop songs they play on the radio, but I think the majority of the people that don't like hip-hop probably stems from the music with no substance they put on the radio. So sometimes I could sort of understand where their coming from. That's why I always challenge the doubters to listen to a particular brand of hip-hop sometimes even giving them an artist to search. Truth be told, hip-hop introduced me and other fans to a lot of rock songs by sampling them. There are plenty of people today that hear Aerosmith's Dream on and still think it's Eminem's song which he sampled on his song Dream For The Moment. I think rap shows it's appreciation to rock all the time by the endless sampling. Rock & roll did the same thing with blues.       I'm one of those people who feel like you could appreciate at least one song from each genre, from rap to country. I'm pretty open minded about most genres and willing to give any song a try. So you can understand why I get annoyed by people who just shun rap like it's just filth, which a lot of it is if you're looking in the wrong places. The same could be said for people who don't have an appreciation for rock and what it takes to learn a instrument. Saying all of this, I do understand there are people who don't care about music as much as I do, but for the ones that do, I challenge to unlock the door to close mind.