What do you think made old-school hip-hop and rap so good?

I think if you think that all the hip-hop and rap music produced in the history of these genres is about them topics that you mentioned, then you haven't heard enough. Yes, artists like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and NWA put far too much emphasis on these issues, but I'd still rather listen to the songs that they make than most of the dance, rave and pop music released today and over the past ten years. By the way, the music you're referring to (which often contains references to drinking and cops) belongs usually to the sub-genre known as gangsta-rap, which isn't what I am referring to at all.

Also, the question is aimed at those who enjoy listening to old-school hip-hop and rap, and your answer is almost completely irrelevant to this question.

And how do you want me to get it to you? I write metal, and you can take a shot at performing a full rap song, and then performing a full metal song. I'll give you 2 days to do both. Now which one will be easier? Rap of course, you don't need talent to rap. You need talent to play real music.

I agree that some of the newer music is good, but I often regret buying new albums because it seems that there are more songs that are not worth listening to, as was the case when I bought Jay-Z's album "Blueprint III", as I only enjoyed listening to 2-3 tracks off the whole album, whereas with "Reasonable Doubt" and "The Black Album", there wasn't a single track that I didn't enjoy, as each and every track stood out from the crowd, and the tracks from both these albums seem lyrically superior to most of Jay-Z's more recent work.

I don't doubt that writing and performing metal requires talent. I do however disagree that rap requires no talent. The lyrical complexity of the best rap songs far exceeds the lyrics of any other genre of music.

Most of the mainstream hip-hop is garbage. But this is true for every genre of music. The more mainstream something becomes, the more watered down it gets.

But if rap truly does require no talent, then you'll have no problem freestyling for us, and uploading it to YouTube or something.

AppleHack23, who misinformed you that you don't need talent to rap? Being able to create music worth listening to could be considered a talent in itself, but an even greater talent is creating music that gains you a devoted fanbase that will still remember your best work even if you choose to release a mainstream album to pay the bills. Plus, what do you mean by real music? Sure, I listen to metal, but you can't just say that metal is the only type of music worth listening to just because you write it. That's like a salesman saying that all products that rival his aren't real products. All music genres are equal in their own right, but it's the quality of the music that matters most, not the genre of music.