It's hard to respect hip hop from a musical perspective. Making beats requires creativity but it doesn't necessarily require music talent or anything more than minimal knowledge of music theory. That's why it's hard to compare hip hop greats to other genres.

It is a step below. I mean, it evolved from kids in the hood growing up at a time when art and music classes were cut out of schools. So, they were just making do with what they had to work with. That's cool and all but you have to recognize that it's limited because of that. I see people in denial trying to act like chopping samples in Fruity Loops makes them a musician. That's bullshit, you're a cut and paste artist.

Synths are a different story, at least you're creating your own sounds but I'm not gonna get into that.

The thing that makes OutKast my favorite group over cats like EPMD, Run DMC, ATCQ or whoever is their musicality. They're not just loopin up some shit and calling it a day. Take a song like "Funkin Around" it doesn't sound like funk, it is funk. Where as EPMD can sample a funk song and sound like funk but it's not funk itself, just a lesser copy, if you know what I'm saying.