Its all relative .....music that is. What passes as a true melody for one is nothing more than pure noise to another.
Country music certainly fullfils the melodic litmus test. At times RAP certainly does not in terms of what a classic melody infers. I.E Melody, harmoney and rythm. Country has those three in spades as do jazz, piano, classical music and most atypical pop music.
Rap to me has rythm and some rhyming (poetic) but often lacks what we classically call harmony and melody. I think at times there are exceptions to this but by and large RAP does not always meet the requirements of what is considered music in terms of the three aforementioned.
Rap certainly has enough rythm to inspire Hip hop dance but that dance is strictly rythmic and does not necessarily involve movement to a specific reasononably repeatable melodic phrase involving steps on beat. You hear the rythm of RAP as opposed to hearing a defined clear cut rise and fall melodic, harmonic, rythmic BEAT that is associated with country, jazz, et al.
Just my .02 cents
