Subterranean Homesick Blues

It really grates me when people call Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" "a forerunner of rap and hip-hop." It's a fine song, and I know some rappers have in fact been influenced by Dylan's style, but it's rather ignorant to say a white folk singer was doing rap before anyone else was. I'm sure the long (and largely African-American) traditions of blues, jazz, and soul had a little to do with the development of hip hop, after all. Not to mention the longer tradition of poetry in general.