Er... I think there are a few things here that people seem to be turning a blind eye to, just because it was Gerry Ryan who brought all of this up. While I whole-heartedly agree with Ho Chi about Gerry Ryan being an absolute moron, some of the rest of the stuff posted here about rap is ever so slightly biased in the other extreme.
People have been quoting 50 cent as being a fad, so to speak, but a number of the major selling artists of the 90's and indeed a few of the start of this century have a very similar style of rap i.e. gangster rap.
The whole gangster rap scene was arguably started by Dr. Dre and NWA and his presence is still very much felt today via Eminem, Busta Rhymes, Eve and 50 cent. In fact, if you were to ask anybody to name a rapper these days, there is one name who also belongs in the above list and who is probably one of the biggest selling rap artists ever... Snoop Dogg.
Snoop also had his origins in gangster rap but more recently he has diversified and thus seen his name become much more well known and he has become a much more respectable and acceptable artist for it, in the main stream music industry anyway.
Now don't get me wrong, rap music is a lot more diverse than just gangster rap but it would be wrong to say it has little or no influence on the music scene.
On some of the points Gerry raised such as for it being evil that’s total BS.
Misogynistic? Well, yes some is or at least appears to be but a lot of it is either tongue in cheek as proclaimed by Dr Dre himself (see A Bitch is a Bitch by N.W.A) or in the case of original gangster rap in the early 90's, it was more social commentary about life in the ghettos of South Central L.A. and the like.
In fact, a lot of N.W.A and its accompanying artist’s original music was just that: social commentary. From the Rodney King incident (N.W.A - Fuck the Police) and the ensuing riots (Dr Dre - The Day the N****z Took Over) to everyday life in the ghetto (Ice Cube - Today was a Good Day). Some where along the line though, people realised that, as Ho Chi pointed out, the gangster element was far more popular than the rest of the social commentary and started to try make money off this alone which brought its own problems and fatalities, most notably Tupac and Biggie.
However, it can be argued that without these original elements, other hip hop styles and artists would not have become as popular as they are today. I mean I originally started listening to hip hop because of the likes of Dr Dre and N.W.A and this eventually led me on to other artists such as Jurassic 5, The Roots, The Jungle Brothers etc. and many other people I know would be the same.
Finally as for Simmons bringing out a "Family version" of rap, why bother? With the likes of Snoop becoming more mainstream and much better music in hip hop (The Roots, Erykah Badu, etc.) I really don't see the point. However, as usual this has probably a lot more to do with money and raising PR than anything to so with the music.
