A point I haven't seen anybody touch on:

Composers are overrated....

Mozart composed his first peice at 5-6 years old. I'd like to see a 5 year old jump on an sp-1200 and "compose" T.R.O.Y.

Bottom line is though- anybody creating an original piece of music- even if it's a 5 second loop pulled from a 4 minute song- is "composing".
Like many have said-you wanna call yourself a composer, that's fine- But when it comes to Hip Hop at least, most producers/beatmakers choose to stick to tradition and the roots of the music..which is a huge part of what makes hip hop what it is.

If you feel some sense of shame expaining to people that don't know about beat making what it is you do, and feel the need to put some kind of different title on it- then you yourself might be one of the people that actually looks down on beatmaking and a lot of the people that do it. Making good beats in any form is every bit as much of an art as ANY other kind of music.

Also, I actually find it kinda sad that there's so many people on this thread saying what they and others do with beats doesn't deserve such an "esteemed" title as composing.Writing music on paper with notes is in no way above digging & chopping up records, or playing/creating melodies w/ samples or synths,etc...a lot of the greatest musicians to ever live never read or wrote a note of sheet music in their lives.And in another 20-30 years,in many circles a lot of hip hop producers will be thought of as some of those greatest musicians of all time.