I find that hard to believe. 5 year olds aren't listening to music deep like that. Their concept of 'genres' doesn't even exist.
I wasn't a hip hop fan till I turned 13/14, even though I heard hip hop when I was 10-ish. I became a hip hop fan when I started understanding what I was listening to and it started shaping how I think.
And you being an RnB nikka first proves my point. You're no different from other brothas I know who are RnB nikkas first and have been following hip hop for a while. While I can give you some sorta props for following hip hop longer than your average poster, the real issue is whether you FEEL hip hop in your bones. If it's not your main genre, it doesn't really matter how long you've been following it - there's always gonna be a disconnect. RnB is NOT hip hop. They are very different things.
A cousin of mine is an RnB nikka to the core. He knows who KRS-One and Mobb Deep are. But these days, he aint even listening to hip hop. old or new. that's why I don't give awards for people (especially cacs) knowing who Nas or Busta Rhymes is - it really doesn't matter.
Cacs try to pull this shyt all the time for respect points. "I've been listening to rap since 1998." Cool, but when shyt gets real, you're listening to indie rock and shyt like that. You think Sgt Pepper is the greatest shyt ever. The vast majority of cacs don't FEEL hip hop like that and that's why we don't take their opinions seriously. If you're rhythmless and can't relate to Black defiance, how the fukk you gon tell me what's dope?