Hi Dick,

Am I inconsistent? Dunno. I think that there is a case for "rap" being a style of urban folk music without the "songs" being sung as folk songs. The "songs" themselves would need to be generational, I believe. The style of performance may already be. It emanates from the African American community and borrows much from the music of the past. "Rapping" seems to be part of the picture. Fats Waller called it "Jiving". Street rhymes, jump rope games and other chants from the African American community might be the forbears of "rap".

As to the "gangsta" stuff, I'm not crazy about the violence and perjoratives given to women either but it bears reminding that many outlaw songs glorified Jesse James, Billy the Kid (a ritarded young man who slaughtered an innocent Mexican family for fun) and many others. The Mexicano Corrido glorifies famous drug dealers,occasionally. How about that notorius mountain ballad, "Pretty Polly"? Is the content of that song any better? Of course in the last stanza, true to the morality code of the Appalachians, Willie gets his comeuppance by going to Hell. But the graphic detail is almost "slasher movie".

Just asking question here.

Frank Hamilton