Ray Charles - "Rap is not music"

How do we know? Because the entire Motown Music catalog sold for a paltry $61M.

Philly Soul sold to Sony Music in 2014, no price available.

But check this out. The top selling recordings all time are music created by whites. Not one black recording among them.

Perhaps black music was “popular”, but only via the radio? The facts don’t lie. Whites did not purchase Black music in large quantities.

No matter how popular it was, it didn’t actually sell in huge numbers. Blacks bought black music, but their purchase numbers could only reflect the numbers of their small population. Facts.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/271174/top-selling-artists-in-the-united-states/#:~:text=Perhaps%20unsurprisingly%2C%20British%20rock%20band,Presley%20with%20139%20million%20units.

@coltrane1 You must have incredible upper body strength from digging these deeper-and-deeper holes for yourself.  
Berry Gordy Jr. sold the Motown company for 61 million in ‘88.  
He sold 50% of the publishing rights to the catalog for 132 million in ‘97, 30% for 110 Million in ‘03, and the remaining 20% for 80 million in ‘04.  
These are extremely valuable songs.  
Even your citation of those sales stats clearly shows one very predictable name: Michael Jackson. He’s #6 on the list.
How one could cite these stats and then say, “not one black recording among them”??
Not one logical argument have you yet made as to how any of this makes a person’s opinion on rap invalid or illegitimate, or how it’s fair to tromp on in here and say, “I doubt many here still listen to ‘soul from the ‘60s and ‘70s.”
 

I love reading stories about rap not being music and if Ray says it's not music why can't we all agree that it isn't music!  How dare one calls it art! Don't ever again let me hear any of it, it should be outlawed! 

You simply cannot expect a bunch of white people to understand rap, which grew out of backlash against racism. Remember the Reagan administration? Or when the CIA knowingly introduced crack into Los Angeles? Those were the times rap was addressing. I wasn’t into Tupac, but even I understood what he spoke of. These were sad times, and the youth today understand the struggle the country faces. Ray Charles was from a generation when being black was a huge handicap. But what do I know I’m a jazz nut.

@coltrane1 For someone who says, “what do I know, I’m a jazz nut,” you sure are quick to speak with a strong sense of authority on lots of things un-jazz.  
I hope you could understand how silly a sentence like, “you simply cannot expect a bunch of white people to understand rap” is.  
Rap is not some alien language. It’s music.  
Obviously the historical context of both peoples’ position in the world is far, far different, and white people are the perpetrators of egregious injustice and people of color have been their victims for centuries.  
We’re talking about art here.  
Art is a human language.  
Just as saying, “white people are less inclined to really ‘get’ rap music than black people” may have a hint of truth but is still overall a dumb statement, so would be saying, “black people are less inclined to really ‘get’ classical music or country music.”