I'm more of a music person partly because my severe hearing loss makes me strain to focus on lyrics, akin to searching for Waldo on a busy page. Even though I've grown to appreciate and learn the lyrics of songs I enjoy, such as "Master of Puppets" or "Bulls on Parade," rap is challenging for me to follow given its lyrics-first nature and my personal firmware limitations. That said, I enjoy creators on Instagram who point out rap's lyrical and musical creativity.
I can relate to this a lot; even though I don't have any hearing loss, I tend to struggle to process lyrics as "words" in real time to the point that when I look up the lyrics to songs I've listened to my whole life, I'll sometimes be surprised with lines I had never understood before. I first discovered this high school when in Spanish class we'd sometimes be given a sheet of lyrics with some missing words and try to fill them in from listening to the song a couple of times (usually as a non-graded activity that would give a few bonus points on the next test if you got it perfect). I found it virtually impossible despite consistently testing quite high even in the portions of exams where we had to listen to audio and answer questions about it, which made me realize that it had less to do with it being a language I lacked full fluency in and more about the fact that it was singing rather than speaking.
On the other hand, I've learned to play several instruments over the years and have a fairly easy time learning songs by ear, so I suspect that part of the issue is that I find it impossible not to focus on the musical parts of singing rather than the linguistic part; if I'm focused on the pitch, rhythm, and tone of the vocals, it's conceivable that it could explain why it's lot harder for me to recognize individual words. It's occurred to me that the reverse issue could also help explain why I've had to put in effort over the years to build up social skills around non-direct communication; a lot of times when someone says one thing but means another, the intent is conveyed in things like rhythm and tone, and I likely find it harder to pick up on those cues due to my entire focus being devoted to understanding the words themselves being spoken rather than how they're being spoken.
