I want to chime in here
I listen to rap music, not because its cool, infact its lost its coolness. Sales are down ect. Look at the charts, how many rap songs do you see? almost none. Unless they pay labels to play there music like Jay does.
Pop is the pop-ular thing right now. But i still like rap, well hiphop.
Most hiphop artists are fake.
A few things i want to say though
There are some beautifully crafted songs made from hiphop artists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyTjA0VJ2AE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84uWGVAcKR4
Only ignorance will dissmiss that track of not being influential.
Even if it isn't perfect for your taste thats no reason to hate it. You dont see hiphop fans hating taylor swift because shes the largest selling artist or lady gaga or britney or every other song made about relationships. They just change the channel.
Hiphop is what is it. Its entertainment. Ill tell you the reason why everybody all of a sudden acted hard. 50 cent came out, was himself, had an inspirational story, watch his behind the music on youtube and you will see how unique his childhood was. But then after his success, all of a sudden we had a million guys who tried to do the hard thing. They made the genre look cheap and made people feel embarresed to listen to the culture. I dont think somebody should be gloryfying drugs in the first place. But there is a guy called Rick ross.... He... well LMAO just google him and read his wiki page. Hiphop should really be about inspiring young people and should be in my opinion like an advanced form of poetry to influence other people in positive ways with a few party non serious tracks too sprinkle on top. I really dont see why somebody can have an issue with that apart from themselves perhaps being extremely negative.