John H. McWhorter writes a wonderful essay on rap/hip-hop and the behavior it encourages. It is thoughtful and informative and concludes that those who think that hip-hop is an urgent critique of a society that produces the need for the thug persona, are wrong. Hip-hop is bad, and has the effect of holding blacks (especially) back. I am not doing justice to the piece. You must read it. 
Well done, Mr. McWhorter, well done. Take away all the self-aggrandizing, expletive-laden, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, homophobic, anti-law enforcement lyrics, and you’re left with very little to be heard from ’gangsta rappers’. These individuals, who easily make more money than most Americans of all ethnicities and races, have the unmitigated gall to complain how ’The Man’ keeps African-Americans down, yet what do these individuals have to offer their community but to serve as negative role models for African-American youth, particularly young African-American men.