“Yet our best trained, best educated, best prepared troops refuse to fight. Matter of fact, it’s safe to say that they would rather switch than fight.” Ever heard a rap with an intro like that?

If you aren’t a rap enthusiast and haven’t seen Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing,” you’ve probably never heard Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.” And if you’re critical of rap despite this lack of critical hip-hop knowledge, then for you rap probably brings to mind images of 50 Cent or Eminem. If you’re slightly more indie, maybe Lupe Fiasco.

Well, I too would be critical of rap if those artists were the limit of my hip-hop exposure. For some, it’s probably because 50 Cent and Eminem’s raps are sometimes violent or inappropriate. But, then again, a lot of today’s hip-hop hits aren’t particularly graphic—I can’t imagine anyone finds Lupe Fiasco’s “Superstar” particularly offensive.

My theory: the real reason why so many people are critical of rap is that they don’t have as strong an emotional response to rap as to other forms of music. You listen to Marilyn Manson, and you feel angry; you listen to the Velvet Underground, and, presumably because of the music, you feel mellow; but when you listen to rap, you’re not exactly sure you feel anything.

But hip-hop can induce just as much of an emotional response if you know what artists to listen to, and how to listen to them. For one, you have to listen to the lyrics actively. You’re not going to get any feelings from “Fight the Power” unless you listen to the anger the lyrics are crafted with. “Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant [Explicated Profanity] to me.” In those lyrics, Public Enemy sums up the years of frustration rappers have faced in encounters with the mainstream music industry.

Anger at injustice provides most rappers with the emotions that fuel them: N.W.A.’s “[Explicated Profanity] tha Police” is partially about police too scared to patrol South Central; The Roots’ “Lost Desire” is all about economic frustration; Eric B. & Rakim’s whimsical “Paid In Full” might seem like a happy-go-lucky experimental musical collage, but its lyrics are also about economic problems.

Of course, maybe anger at decades of injustice doesn’t elicit a response from you. Fair enough—maybe you like to keep your politics and music separate. But hip-hop can also elicit a response with its distinctive ambiances. One example might be A Tribe Called Quest’s “Jazz (We’ve Got).” The rap is about writing rap lyrics and is full of off-topic puns. But the song has a strong mysterious aura that makes you feel mellow. It’s not the same strong, identifiable emotion I feel when I listen to rock tracks—rather, in the words of A Tribe Called Quest, the group’s “brand new twist” is “so low-key that ya probably missed it / And yet it’s so loud, that it stands in the crowd / When the guy takes the beat, they bowed.”

And then there are the raps that you’re not really sure why you like. To me, Wu-Tang Clan’s “Ol’ Dirty Bastard” is brilliant. I love his quirky lyrics like “rhymes good as a Tastykake.” He doesn’t create a strong ambiance and doesn’t offer particularly insightful lyrics. But his distinctive style and lyrics combined with his gruff voice undeniably make me feel some unidentifiable emotion.

So, before you judge hip-hop, make sure you’re not listening to any, as Run-DMC described them, “Sucker M.C.s.”