That's not the point Frank. Rap is the now poetry of the getto, of the streets, of the poor inner city with a strong beat & a strong rhyming structure & a fast flow & with a musical back up behind it that fits well with the emotion. They aren't singing, they really aren't singing to the back up musicals, that back up just reinforces the original beat of the poetry. Back in the late 60's & 70's you wouldn't have heard even the performers claim this as a music. I remember people dancing to it but it was the back up they were dancing to not the poet.

Rap is more a mastering & mixing of a rhythm & rhyme sceme. Take away the back up music & you still have rap, it was very common in the poor inner cities sections & no one toted a band around to do it, there was no need for a band unless you wanted to market it but that wasn't how it started. It was a shamefull thing back then if a white boy out rapped a blackm, it was their art form from the beginning & the music only came after in started going commerical. 'It only became international because it sold & was capitolized on otherwise it would've been happy saying in the inner city & possibly dying.

BTW, Rap doesn't come close to Prison Work songs, no connection at all unless it's just because the skin color of the singers. That's like saying shanties are related to jump rope rhymes, exercising the leg muscles

Barry