There is this genre of music that combines country and rap.

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They call it crap.

Actually, it's called "country rap" and it's been around since the '90s, but I doubt it's succeeded to make country music any less dreadful (with apologies to country/western fans).

I know of a band that combines the two called Ganstagrass. I kinda like it

country and jazz/country and blues have long mixed, for decades now. "i wanna bowl-legged woman" was a hit for both C&W performer moon mullican as well as R&B performer bull moose jackson.

I'm actually quite familiar with the Bull Moose Jackson version; didn't know about the other. I have quite a fondness for the "dirty" blues and jazz of that era.

it was done not in an r and b style but in a two-beat style similar to the early jazz period between ragtime and dixieland. unfortunately, it is nowhere to be found on the web. one of these days i shall have to try to dig out my copy and post it somehow on youtube. another user on WP, "naturalplastic" owns a copy i gave him.

But does it make rap any less "dreadful"?

I'm not really into rap other than the more popish stuff but I like Gangstagrass. I'm not really familiar with other groups that combine country & rap.

Some folks have suggested (somewhat facetiously probably) that the "callers" at old time square dances were the first "White rappers".

"Alemand left...dos-e-do, bow to your partner, bow to your corner". Talk -singing, and hand clapping, and stomping, to that square dance beat.
And in actual square dances back in the day these caller guys actually could get rather raunchy in their patter- much like rap.

Much of Johnny Cash's music is more rhythmic talk-singing than conventional melodic singing IMHO, and is very rap-like.

Here is a traditional Irish "rap" song being done by Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers.

Indeed...with all the violence in the story...its downright gangsta!

No offense intended, just a matter of taste, of course. I love golden age and alternative hip-hop, though I'll be snobby enough to concur that most modern rap lacks the same musicality. Provided, though I'm not too much of a "rap fan", my musical universe wholly encompasses funk, disco, reggae, dancehall, dub and everything which contributed to the development of hip-hop, whereas the spectrum of country and western is but an alien planet to me.

I'll admit I do greatly enjoy many of the figures in the outlaw country scene. Seems like nobody can say no to Johnny Cash regardless of what subculture they belong to. But given the choice between mainstream rap and mainstream country, I would personally - albeit reluctantly - side with the former.

i have an old recording by a bainbridge island [washington] group called "the islanders 5" performing something called "the scottish rap" where they perform a mixture of early 90s rap and old scottish fiddle reel [the original "country" music] with bagpipes.