"I appreciate the sociological/historical aspect of the music you describe, Jim, and it's very obvious how it touches your own heart. I just wonder, once again, how such music is to go forward, develop and progress and perhaps have some consonance with times other than those in the past. We live in a curious period vis-a-vis this music."
   it will go forward by those singers that have absorbed the traditional singers style ,it will go forward by a continous movement and through cultural connections,the problem with just experimenting with two completely unconnected cultural styles [english unaccompanied traditional singing and rap]is that you end up with an eccentric collage with two styles that do not sit comfortably together,it is the equivalent of mixing strawberry jam with caviar,it ia gastronomic catastrophe,here we have a musical absurdity.
if the singer had decided to sing part of the song and talk the rest it may well have worked as an experiment,providing the singer was competent at both singing and story telling.
traditional music or any music[imo] can do without gimmicks or thoughtless experiments.
if we could have understood the rappers words and the accompanimment had been lower in the mix,it might possibly have worked better.
but why rap?what is the cultural connection between the two styles
mixing of styles can work,but generally the musicians have to be very good at both styles[which is unusual]most musicians are good at one style,can you imagine charlie parker trying to perform with martin Carthy?or Martin trying to play be bop,I am sure he could do it,but he would need to listen for a long time to absorb and be comfortable with it.