Hey, it's Alan, and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing

history of new music early and ad-free on Amazon music, included with Prime.

Every supermarket has a premium range, but there's only one number one from Waitrose,

with products like the number one Wagyu Topside seasoned roasting joint,

naturally marbled and meltingly tender. Or the number one sticky

cinnamon bun pudding? Buttery, rich and perfectly spiced. And the number one smoked silver fox

cheddar, 18 month matured, oaky and creamy. Food worth getting the fancy plates out for, waitrose,

the home of food lovers. Selected stores subject to

availability. There are just some things you should never mix, or you can't mix them. Oil and

water, for example. Nitro and glycerin, a bad idea. Tequila and, uh, well, it's probably not a good

idea to mix tequila with anything other than salt, lemon,

and maybe a little fruit juice.

They used to say this about rock and rap music, too.

And they were pretty adamant about it.

When rap and hip-hop started seeping into the mainstream in the middle 1980s, it immediately

polarized people.

Those who didn't or refused to get it were aggressively dismissive of what

rap brought to the table. That's not rap, they'd say, that's crap. This isn't music, it's just

bad poetry over beat stolen from another record. It took a few years, but by the time we got into the

1990s, hip-hop and rap was becoming a very powerful musical and cultural

force. And today, it is the genre when it comes to driving culture. After half a century of

being in charge, rock has, frankly, fallen to second place. But not only that, a chunk of the

...