Wait a minute... LOS IS BLACK??!?! I just thought the lighting in his DP had been artistically modified! I feel like I have been lied to...
Kidding...
But seriously, it's all about what you're exposed to and what you like. Russel, you're probably from a dominately white area where rock and metal has a high dominance and because of that influence, you would feel that its quite a stronger style because its made by man, as opposed to synthetic hip-hop. other things would also affect your choice.
Los, without being blunt or racist sounding, your black... It's quite a different culture style to us white folks and a lot of the modern mainstream white music is either really girly sounding pop or angry white guys with guitars.
Your music tastes are just the same thing as to how you'll raise children, your favourite foods and favourite games. Both of you will know more about your respected music styles.
Like Rus, I'd know more about rock and metal, but my specialty is classic rock, 60s-early 90s. The fact that my sisters are more mainstream and listen to the more "urban" styled radio stations means that I've been expose fairly regularly to hip-hop and know what to look for in a decent track, which is hard to do these days...
Hopefully we can come together on this and have a good mix of tunes. The suggestions that Los has given, despite not seeing them and going by his description, appear to be the smooth "about life" style hip-hop, reminscent of the old school, instead of the generic formula of money, women, drugs and gang violence. Rus' suggestions appear to be high energy "go out and kill!" style music that would just amp you up for your training.
This list of songs and artists can add variety to not only trick sessions, but also to personaly music tastes.
Torst has some decent suggestions too, but I'll have to have a closer look at them too :3