When rap came out 30 years ago I thought it was just a fad

I guess it's easy to criticize any form of music. I don't like Rap but I also don't like Opera, Big Band, Punk (with a few exceptions), Pop, Avant Garde or experimental Jazz, Middle Eastern, Country.....the list goes on. While my tastes gravitate more toward rock and roll, I own and enjoy many different genres of music including Rock, Folk, World, Jazz, Blues and Electronic.  For me, I don't look (that's an interesting term because we can't actually see it can we?) at music in terms of its category but rather how it's constructed, the presentation by the artist, its creativity, the feeling that it comes from the artists soul and overall sound. I'm not a big Jazz fan but I think Patricia Barber is one of the most talented artists on the planet. I really enjoy her music and respect the musicianship of her band members. At the same time I do not like certain instruments such as trumpet (sorry Miles Davis fans) it just comes across as too "blarry" to me. Give me a smooth sax any day.

So the point here is that while there are many different genres of music there are just as many individual tastes and it's not for me to judge others tastes. Just as I don't understand how people like Rap, I equally don't get how people can enjoy Country or Opera. (Interestingly, I saw Phantom of the Opera and really enjoyed it. It is not classical Opera however.) So in regards to Rap, while my thoughts mostly align with other comments made here, it does have its audience. It just doesn't have mine.

Remember Blondie's Rapture? As a white kid growing up in the country, that was my first exposure to rap. Up until that point, I didn't even know it existed. When we first heard that song, we were thinking "What the hell is all the talking for? She's not even singing anymore." We thought she had lost her voice and was disguising it by using a delivery method that didn't require the ability to hit and hold notes.

Rap to me is street poetry. It can be artful or awful. It can combine real music done with real talent, or not.

The one thing about it that that makes it very popular is that, like video games, it can be picked up and performed by the completely talentless. It doesn't even require a real band, so it is much easier to create and sell. It's perfect for movies because you don't have to pay a real composer for a real score and then pay a producer to hire an orchestra to play it, record it, master it, etc. Think of the soundtrack overhead of the 50s and 60s. All the overhead that used to go to paying for real music can now go to promotion. Puff someone up with a cool name, cool clothes and a fake persona, shout a bad poem in time to the synthesized beat and you're in business. All you need is someone delusional enough to perform and not realize that they really suck, and there are plenty of them. They all want to believe they are special. That's what young narcissistic people do and now they have an avenue to do it that doesn't require actually singing a note.

It's really pretty brilliant. It's modern marketing through and through: Make crap, sell it for the same or higher price and pocket the difference.

Whipsaw, there's a lot of music that I don't like.  But I don't say that it's not music.  I simply don't believe rap possesses the melodic element required.  If you're not going to have the melodic or harmonic element you'd better have some pretty interesting rhythm happening. 
If a "beat" poet recites with bongos accompanying, is that music or just a guy reciting poetry with percussion behind it?  Isn't that  essentially what rap is?
BTW,  again you insult my power of reasoning.  Why?  It certainly doesn't help your case.  I've heard rap as long as it's been around.  I keep listening and I keep thinking.  Again, the fact that I don't care for it is not the reason I don't think it qualifies as music.  You're jumping to conclusions.

Tostadosunidos, to say that rap isn't part of rock and roll is historically incorrect.