Maya Angelou has said:

"Lyrical poetry is out for the time being, and something that is called rap or hip-hop is in. It is still poetry, and we can't live without it. We need language to tell us who we are, how we feel, what we're capable of — to explain the pains and glory of our existence."

and then, she has also said...

[Disagreeing with Russell Simmons' comment that "comparing Don Imus' language with hip hop artists' artistic expression is misguided and inaccurate,"] Maya Angelou on the CBS Evening News also said:

    "It's all the same. All vulgarity is vulgarity. If you mean to demean a person, to make her or him less than whole — anyone could say it, you could say it from a robot — it means that this person is not worthy of my concern. But at last we're going to have a dialogue, I'm telling you. Nelly, P. Diddy, Snoop Dogg — all of those men, who are very intelligent — and I include Dave Chappelle — for the first time we are going to sit down and see how have we come so late and lonely to this place. I would ask the hip hoppers, if you wanted to say something and see how powerful you are, use Ms. Laura Bush and call her one of those "b-" words — and see how long you will live. There wouldn't be enough rope to hang your butts. No. But black women, because we are last on the totem pole, everyone has a chance to take a chance on us. Well, not now."