You know the genre has got something going for it when a rap version of Hamlet manages to annoy the Tory Cabinet into making a national issue of it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-24351371

The storyline of Hamlet includes the hero doing a completely random killing (Polonius), sexist abuse of Ophelia driving her to suicide, sneakily engineering the murder of two guys with Jewish names, and finally setting off a bloodbath that kills every developed character left on stage. And we're supposed to sympathize with him. Is any character in a rap lyric as gross as the one Shakespeare created?

For that matter, how many rap personas can match Don Giovanni, Turandot or Mr Punch?