A recent conversation I had in the library really made me think. I expressed my interest in rock ‘n’ roll, and I was met with the response, “That’s a dead genre, nobody cares about white guys with electric guitars anymore.”

My friend had unknowingly left me in stunned silence. The ignorance was bewildering. To be honest, I should be numb to that sentiment, as it is one propagated by entities such as The New York Times and the bassist of KISS, Gene Simmons, arguably one of the most iconic rock bands of all time. The argument goes like this: rock is dead because electric guitars and groupie culture are in decline and hip-hop, particularly rap, has overtaken the genre for almost a decade now.

While some parts of this argument may hold true, they do not point towards the death of rock ‘n’ roll, and if you think they do, it’s because you’re defining rock as just a pit-stop in the incredibly dynamic history of the genre. Such a definition is unjust not only to rock’s groundbreaking origins but also to its contemporary replacement: rap.

Rock music came into existence in the late 1940s as the amalgamation of various African American musical genres including R&B, gospel music and country music. The term Rock ‘n’ Roll was coined in 1951 in Cleveland, Ohio by DJ Alan Freed. He began playing R&B on the radio for a young, multi-racial audience, disregarding widespread musical segregation. Since then, rock has evolved immensely, transgressing boundaries as artists across the world began to experiment and incorporate new and unusual styles into their music.

Rock evolved directly from the funk of the 1970s. A decade earlier, funk was at the doorstep of James Brown. Brown emerged from the 1950s soul genre, dominated at the time by musician Roy Brown. Brown himself wrote the first widely accepted rock hit, Good Rockin' Tonight, in 1947. Just like a biological child, rock ‘n’ roll inherited certain aspects of other genres and used these genres to build off of. Likewise, Zeppelin, Nirvana and Smash Mouth each drew from distinct sources of rock that preceded them, making each of them as different from one another as they are from Tupac Shakur and Run-DMC. All of these artists undertook the same journey while choosing alternate routes to get to their destination.

Now imagine a scenario where Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Scotty Moore and others were prevented from creating music by people who wanted to preserve rock's original sound? What if, in the 1960s, artists like Pink Floyd or The Rolling Stones had been kept from rock ‘n’ roll. Simply consider the consequences if, in the mid-50s, Bill Haley and Elvis Presley were not allowed to categorize their music as “rock ‘n’ roll” because of their distance from African American heritage? Rock had the unique ability to breach a significant cultural divide, both sonically and socially. It was these musicians who allowed the genre to grow and change. If we adhere to a strict definition of what it means for music to be “rock,” then the genre would have to take on a completely different persona. The notion of genre-blending and constant change is a staple of rock 'n' roll.

The essence of rock is the fact that it is anti-establishment. Its birth is rooted in people defying what was expected of them, ignoring existing divisions of race, class, gender and nationality to bond over their shared love of music and voice unconventional and often repressed opinions. Rap is also poetry which has over time blurred lines to reach people across the world. It remains a valid example of rock 'n' roll's theme of liberation from the mental divisions we construct — such as those that genre-bending rap artists like Kanye are known for — and its demand for self-expression for whatever generation is coming of age at the time. The essence of rock has not died, though the trope of it being ruled by “white men playing electric guitars, surrounded by groupies” certainly should.