Ray Charles - "Rap is not music"

Talented and smart people say dumb things, and it’s dumb to agree with something dumb.

Rap is an acknowledged art form. It has millions of people who love it, buy it, celebrate it. Continuing to deny that it is art sounds, well, pretty ill-motivated.

I don’t like rap. I don’t listen to rap.

I don’t like twelve-tone music. I don’t listen to it.

I don’t like a lot of things. But they don’t get bumped from existence because I don’t like them. Or because Ray Charles or someone else doesn’t like them. Make an argument if you don’t want to appear lazy.

Oh, and trumpeting your mere dislike of rap -- as a thread starter -- is not a great look. 

I respect Ray Charles. But besides what he said about rap, he said some other things. Here are a few others:

"Racism and poverty. Two scourges that I have known since early in my life. Sadly, while things are better for many, there are those who still suffer the indignities of both.

Until we find a way to fix these problems, there will always be unrest in our society and world.”

Because I'm a black man, whatever affects my people affects me. This means that the greatest handicap I've had - and still have - is my color. 

If the blues ever gets sung by a White person, it'll be a Jew who does it. They've known what it is to be somebody else's footstool.

What I never understood to this day, to this very day, was how white people could have black people cook for them, make their meals, but wouldn't let them sit at the table with them. How can you dislike someone so much and have them cook for you? Shoot, if I don't like someone you ain't cooking nothing for me, ever.

Until every man in America can get any job he's qualified for or any house he's got the money to buy, regardless of his color, I'll always be handicapped. 

People want more and more and more, and some seem to have a need to look down on others, and they're bothered when no one's around to look down upon."
 

@simao +1000 for calling out the racism.