"But a society to embrace the gangster stuff and idolize it, I don't understand that thinking. To me the violence cannot be justified."

Western society is a culture saturated in violence and lack of respect for fellow human beings. Take a look at the TV and film output of the US and UK - a large part of this glorifies violence against the person and undermines the consequences of violence for the victim. We live in a culture that advocates torture, spends tens of millions piping endless scenes of violence into our homes, glorifies the use guns and knives and kills tens of thousands of innocents with impunity. This malaise goes deep into the rotten core of the modern western psyche.

From The Dark Knight to Rambo, The A Team to The Wire and the endless cop shows, all based around violence and it's casual acceptance as part of modern Western society. In this respect Rap is no different to any other music form created in the West, although violence seems to figure large in it's own cultural cliqué as a way of life.

Although I largely agree with Elijah's excellent post I think there is a fundamental difference between punk and rap and that's the influence of big business. Whereas punk and rap were/are essentially DIY music making at street level, their actual cultures are very different. Like many youth tribes, punk rallied against the establishment and wore clothes that were home-made, purchased for pence from jumble sales and charity shops and generally eschewed commercial influence on it's look (obviously this didn't last, and it wasn't long before big business got involved but there was never a major clothes industry based around punk, as individuality in dress was a core value to punks).

With rap however, though the look is based on the clothing produced by large multinationals such as Nike and Adidas - some suit in a boardroom in an posh office block is essentially dictating the look on the streets. The bling is ostentatious and expensive and the drinks of choice are Krystal, Krug and XO. This is not the level playing field the punks wanted to create by smashing the system, this is the system ensuring that many rap adherents are buying the labels and getting the latest gear.

They might be angry and ready for a rumble, but the disillusioned youth of the 21st Century certainly aren't revolutionaries, but well-trained consumers.