I *hate* to see ppl blame rap music for our problems, as if talking in cadence over beats and music is somehow inherently satanic.

Anybody ever hear of artist like Roots, Mos Def, Common, Dead Prez, Talib Kweli, Black Eye Peas, Kam, Paris, Afu-Ra? No? You must be watching too much MTV/BET. Anybody remember artists like Public Enemy, X-Clan, Tribe Called Quest, KRS-ONE, Bran Nubian, Poor Righteous Teachers, De La Soul, etc etc. I could sit here all day listing positive hip-hop artists. If all these positive elements have always existed (and still do) in hip-hop, exactly how is hip-hop to blame?

Everything in life has a negative element. Name me anything in this world and I'll show you something negative about it, down to the preacher in the pulpit. But the pure and good is not what makes it in this media.

The problem is not hip-hop. The violence/materialism in hip-hop you're lamenting is a symptom of the problem; a problem I like to call America. People act like there isn't sex, drugs, violence, materialism, and everything else negative in every other form of media, TV, news, movies, video games, books, magazines, etc. And doesn't anyone ever realize that the more *popular* hip-hop became, the more of the *negative* of hip-hop you saw?

If, by some otherwise impossible circumstance, hip-hop became 100% clean and pure (unlike anything else in this world), it would immediately cease and desist to be a force in mainstream America. It would have nothing upon nothing more to offer a culture that always illuminates and supports the most negative elements that life has to offer.

There is absolutely positively nothing wrong with hip-hop. Stop the endless scapegoating. The problem is with people in this God-forsaken culture of excess and depravity, of all things material and of nothing of a spiritual or uplifting value.

America, not hip-hop, made it cool to base your life on the value of "things." As a recently-oppressed people in this country, in this Hemisphere, we're simply feeding on it (and taking it to a whole next level). There is nothing less evil about a white-collar criminal stealing millions of dollars from poor and working people, nothing less evil about a corporation impoverishing an entire nation of people in far-off lands for their material benefit, than it is to sell drugs on the corner to get rich. They've all got as their aim the acquisition of wealth by any means necessary -- any means, that is, that are readily available to the criminal. It just happens to be a lot cooler/easier to lambaste the common thug criminal in whatever medium than it is the others.

Reminds me of when, in Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore asked the producer of "Cops" why they don't cover investigations and arrests of white collar criminals (who cause as much if not more damage than -- for lack of a better term -- blue-collar criminals). He plainly stated the obvious, which is that it wouldn't get ratings. But crime and material worship is all around us, not just in rap videos.

Anyways, I hate to say it, but this country is one that is built on crime and possession. These youth are simply following the American dream to the letter. God bless America!