Rap vs. Hip Hop
 

In your opinion, what's the difference (if any)? Which do you prefer?

To me Hip Hop was always a culture whereas Rap was always an action.
Every Emcee is a Rapper but not every Rapper is an Emcee type of deal

So Rap is the musical aspect of Hip Hop without the culture?

To me its all one in the same with little subset genres like trap, backpack rap, pop-rap, etc. It's like the two edges of the hip-hop sword are mainstream and underground but it's also a serrated edge & every serration is one of the aforementioned subsets.

The answer depends on context and one's understanding of the words. There was a time when hiphop was a distinct sub genre of rap music and was viewed as different than rap. A lot of real hip hop heads from the 90s would say "I don't listen to east or west coast I listen to hiphop" during the whole east coast west coast beef. But what's considered hiphop is subjective. And that's how it was, is and always will be. Hiphop was more of the culture of the elements in the past but the name was chosen by corporate, msm labels over rap cuz "rap" had a negative connotation attached to it. So hiphop became the generic term we see today. Where even cross dressing rappers like Young Thug are referred to as hiphop artist.

I think this is subjective. However I think of Hip Hop as being meaningful (Example: Immortal Technique), and Rap to be much more centred around bars (Example: Cassidy).

I agree with it being subjective. I think the one central theme of Hip Hop is authenticity...or the concept of "keeping it real," and being authentic means different things to different people. For some people, rapping about all the money you make and all the bitches you fuck is fake and you're putting on a front. For others, that's their real life (or at least it was) and the backpackers aren't "real" enough.

So it's not so much about content (at least initially) because two people can spit about the same subject but one seems to do so authentically while the other seems to do it purely for commercial reasons. That is when it can be about content to some extent because certain content sells more than others (sex, violence, etc.).

I'm changing the topic slightly but am I the only person bored of the same topics & stories in our genre? The drug dealer from an impoverished background glorifying the struggle of selling drugs usually. There was nothing wrong with the story being told but every rapper seems to have the same background. Why can't we have something different? I think that was one of the reasons for the success of someone like Macklemore - he jumps on the scene talking about buying clothes from a Thrift shop and has had a few big hits with similar, unorthodox topics.

Yeah but Macklemore also talks about how he's culturally appropriating the black music and how he has white privilege so he can fuck right off.

My problem with rap a lot is that everyone is John Cena. What I mean by this is that they aren't allowed to play a "character". They have to "keep it real" and be honest about themselves. Why aren't we allowed more storytelling? Things like 2pac writing a verse from the perspective of a woman, as if she's the protagonist? Or Eminem's Stan. Things like that always feel different for me and it opens it up to be more like writing and poetry than it is "rap".

Anyways, as for the general topic, some people have it the complete otherway around but I see rap as the action of rapping, and I see hiphop as the whole facade with flashy cars and gold chains.