Not sure if you're American but it's kind of the most popular genre of music here right now. And part of it involves allowing yourself to like things that you didn't think you'd like. And I'm not saying you're overtly racist but personally I was super racist until like two years ago and then I made an effort to stop and I realized rap is actually really good - even "shitty" rap. I'm sure other people discovered it in other ways.
For me it was always about the storytelling side of it, its much more involving than mainstream songs, more relatable to me aswell, thats why my favorite rappers are Nas, J.Cole and Kendrick.
Also helps that they got fat fucking beats on most rap tracks.
