A digital sound sample in angry rap doesn't correspond to the graffiti but the wall.

Rap has been a path between cultures in the best tradition of popular music.

A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.

No one can identify the uninformed until they voice their ignorance about a topic. Silence is a fool’s best friend. Sadly, he is often too foolish to realize it.

For so-called conscious rappers, it is an opportunity to rap about ways to educate others about African American history, politics and even relationships: all of which would be missed if society merely focused on the “hook” and ignored the influence.

The business of hip hop is probably the most tangible example of the genre’s dramatic maturation.