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Rap is a music form that is still new and constantly expanding and evolving. It is sometimes rock-based, sometimes funk, and sometimes very close to the original "street" sound. There are even some female rappers. Rap lyrics are about problems such as poverty, crime, violence, racism, poor living conditions, drugs, alcoholism, corruption, and prostitution that rap musicians have seen in the ghetto. The rhythm or beat is one of the biggest attractions of rap music, and it is sometimes difficult to understand the words. People complain that rap music is sexist and against women; and that it glamorizes violence, criminality, and materialism. There is another way to look at it though. Cheryl L. Keyes sees it as a display of cultural values, an educational tool, and a political forum, as well as a vehicle for self expression and social control within the hip-hop community.
It is interesting that, according to David Samuels in his article titled "The Rap on Rap: the 'Black Music' that Isn't Either" in "The New Republic", even though rap is proportionally more popular among blacks, it's main audience is white people living in the suburbs. He also says that the more that rappers were packaged as violent black criminals that the bigger the audience of white people became. Maybe that is due to the appeal of things that are considered taboo by one's social group. Maybe there is some deep down rebellion about the way these white people see their society which rap music speaks to. When you have a group of people who make music that is, for whatever reason, clearly more attractive to all American youth; and when that group of people has a history of poverty and discrimination, you have a recipe for an effective way to protest and hopefully change society for the better.
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