"Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold. Their knowledge of the fine arts is some study of rules and particulars, or some limited judgment of color or form which is exercised for amusement or for show."
--Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Selected Essays. New York: Peoples Book Club, 1949, pp. 253.

In a recent study conducted by Virgil Griffiths, a PhD student in California, Hip-Hop music listeners are portrayed as unintelligent and intellectually deficient. The independent study, titled "Music That Makes You Dumb," found that those who listen to Lil’ Wayne, T.I., Kanye West, Jay-z and Ludacris (the usual suspects) are, essentially, dumb. On the contrary, listening...