Hip-hop and rock and roll are like the worst on-again, off-again couple you've ever met. When they're on, sparks fly and two of the 20th century's greatest artistic movements collide and transcend. When they're off — Limp Bizkit, Korn, Woodstock '99 — well, you get the picture. Recall when Run-D.M.C. dusted off Aerosmith's corpse for a rendition of "Walk This Way" in 1986, in the process reigniting the Boston rock band's career. Eyebrows were raised, and pearls were clutched. How could the two possibly be reconciled?! Would this be the start of a new, hybrid genre that rules all? Mmm, not quite. By and large, when rock and rap meet in the studio, the results are pretty mixed. For every success like the 2004 collaboration of Jay-Z and Linkin Park, Collision Course, there are pairings no one asked for, such as Big Pun and Incubus or the so-bad-you-forgot-it-was-on-a-Godzilla-soundtrack duet between Diddy and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, "Come With Me." (Also possibly the worst "Saturday Night Live" performance of all time.) Almost 40 years after "Walk This Way," the debate over whether rock and rap belong together persists. Burlington rapper Real Ova Deceit, aka R.O.D., doesn't understand why. "Style isn't everything," R.O.D., real name Rod Senter, told me in a phone call last week. "I don't care if they just make beats or they're playing a guitar. If you're versatile — and I am — you can make it work." He added: "And if the song is good, it's good, and I'm going to spit some poetry over it." R.O.D. should know. Last fall, he enlisted the help of St. Albans producer and guitarist André Maquera to create Hip Rock, an eight-song collection fusing Maquera's guitar wizardry and studio nous with R.O.D.'s multifaceted flow. The result is an eclectic record that leaps effortlessly from funk to blues to rock to pop and brings out the best in both artists. The two connected in 2020 after local producer David Cooper (A2VT) recommended Maquera's St. Albans studio, West Street Digital, to R.O.D., who moved to Vermont from Tampa, Fla., in 2014. They hit it off and worked together on many of R.O.D.'s projects and mixtapes, but Hip Rock represents a deeper collaboration. "I had so many Oh, fuck! moments with Rod where he would come in, listen to the track I put together and just start rapping," said Maquera, who performed…