glorifying violence, abuse of women, etc etc.

You listened to any Traditional Folk Songs / Ballads recently?

Why then are you posting to and, presumably, reading a folk music forum? :-)

Because I am cursed with a partially active & wholly imperfect Folk Gene & have even been known to participate from time to time... BUT I'm under no illusions as to Folk's nature & purpose, much less its origins. I'm not seeking to rub anyone up, just tell it like it is : Folk is born from a bourgeois fantasy of proletarian culture and carries on in essentially the same vain to this day. It's music for & a white middle-class graduate demographic because of its essential academic / theoretical status. This includes all the Folk Music I've ever taken part in.

Rap is alive and thriving internationally; Folk, OTOH, is the esoteric dreaming of a privileged few.