Well, my "relationship" with Rap started out back in about grade 6, or 5, something like that. About the time that Eminem came out with My Name Is. We'd had a school dance and I heard the song, I didn't know it before then, but some of my friends knew it and were into it. I liked Eminem, and listened to some of his other stuff, not much, but I knew a couple songs. Slowly from then, I began to listen to more Eminem. I ended up owning The Eminem Show and listening to that CD. Well, by then, I knew more of the music, since it was dominating the pop culture at the time, but I never got too much into it. Since then, I've been introduced to stuff like the Black Eyed Peas, Del, The Funkee Homosapien, Dr Octagon (Anyone ever play the old skateboarding game Grind Session? His track Blue Flowers was on there, and it kicks SERIOUS ass), and a whole boatload of other stuff. I've listened to Necro, Immortal Technique, and Jedi Mind Tricks, all awesome.
I've always liked the oldschool stuff, both East and West coast, really. East coast was all about using rap as a form of music and stuff, expressing yourself (Express Yourself!), and in general being however you wanted to be, and west coast was gritty, about the streets, crime, and how things were. It wasn't there to promote hate, or to glorify guns, bling, and smackin your bitch up. It was about how things really happened. It was by black people growing up in the ghetto, for black people growing up in the ghetto.
Then, G-Funk. That stuff was alright. It was getting worse, but Dr. Dre was a damn good producer, and musically and such, rap was still pretty good. It was evolving, and becoming more polished, but at the same time, it held true to it's roots, and even though it was a bit more gangsta oriented, it was still pretty close to the older stuff.
Up until then, rap was good. Then it went downhill REAL fast. Rappers took that Gangster mentality and ran with it. Instead of getting stuff like 2 Pac's Changes and Eminen's Stan, we're getting stuff like 50-cent and Chamillionare, or however the fuck you spell that. By this point, I've come to completely hate commercial rap.
Which reminds me, I need to download some Eminem.