Should the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame include artists outside the rock genre?
USA Today “People have to adjust their reference points a little,” Marks says. “Hip-hop in its early days was a singles medium, and they had two or three years of indestructibly perfect singles. That’s formidable. Rap is part of rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s vaguely racist to think it shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame. If it isn’t allowed in, you’ll run out of people to put in there pretty soon.” The notion of excluding rap “is emblematic of the debate that boomers love to have about rock ‘n’ roll music not being good anymore,” Marks adds. “The thought of Van Halen or Grandmaster Flash sharing the room with the dead bluesmen and ’60s hippies just rubs them the wrong way. It’s generational bigotry.
