Rap is being made by people of every shade, gender, and socio-economic bracket.

No matter what, just like jazz and unlike rock, hip-hop will always be seen by some as "black music," and typically, black music that emerges from impoverished American neighborhoods. American music has an ugly history of whitewashing, and we hope that never happens to hip-hop (the news alert that Macklemore's song went triple-platinum we received as we were writing this not withstanding, of course).

But the conservative and traditional thinking that hip-hop should only come from certain people in certain places only limits an infinite amount of potential. We're still happy to see any and everyone—from an Australian white girl like Iggy Azalea to a Bengali immigrant like Big Baby Gandhi to Chicago kids from the hardest hoods like Lil Reese—embracing and enjoying hip-hop. Socioeconomic backgrounds are, of course, an important biographical kernel about an art, but they're just that, and not the art itself. In 2013, if it's hot, it's hot.