I've talked and written about this til I can't anymore. I do have to say that calling someone a racist for their opinions about rap is outrageous and awfully naive. Don't forget that rap, besides being an artistic depiction of urban and other violence, to the point of atrocity, also has an active role in justifying same to young impressionable minds. I've seen it happen way too much when I was teaching in juvenile prison. Kids who couldn't write their names could recite whole rap albums (the gangsta kind) and there's no way around the obvious, that it made their personal crimes seem more "normal". By the way, Erykah Badu, whose songs seem relatively benign, has put out some stuff in support of the 5-Percenters, a drug gang that poses as a religion and recruits mostly young people in prison to go retail drugs for them when they get out, all the while making them think they are part of something ancient and noble. So they end up in prison again, and another one takes their place. My last word (I promise) is that in all facets of culture (music, religions, politics) if the truly fairminded and positive people are not willing to speak out about the nasty ones (lots of TV preachers come to mind), then they taint us all. Names have to be named, and that's what makes people too uncomfortable to speak.

Chet