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Although the following may be true...

The ultimate irony is that the biggest market for in-your-face rap is not the dispossessed ghetto youth. The real money is made in the white suburbs, where teens who live in the most cosseted environment in the history of mankind are able to live out fantasies of being the roughest, toughest guy in the ’hood. As the cultural critic Martha Bayles has observed, the music has supplanted heavy metal as the soundtrack of a young man’s rite of passage.

...I think Clive Davis misses the point of rap. The music, or more specifically, the beat, is all in the service of the words. Poetry of the streets, more or less. Of course the rap world is filled with inane lyrics, such as, “Brazilian beauties with booties that wobble," and much of the "music" in that world is not interesting. Nevertheless, the "fuck-you" attitude of Missy, Eminem, 50 Cent, Snoop, etc., used to be embodied by Miles, Trane, Dexter, and all the rest. It's the 21st century, for pete's sake!

Face it, Clive...comparing Ray Charles with Kanye is like comparing AC/DC with The Max Roach Quartet. Dumb, dumb, dumb...

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