I don't get the "proper language" argument.
what is cockney? pacific pidgin? everyone can have his/her particular dialect and create art within this. we have also artists, who distort language, grammar, pronunciation deliberately. some respect them, some not. language has been used as a class weapon since long. proper accent is a ticket into elite circles. endless topic...
simple use of bad words is a matter of taste, and will always be dissed, even when it sells billions. so what..
the "insult" argument bothers me for one thing, in rap there is a good percentage of insult. battling, dissing, and also plain, anti-establishment, even separatist calls for fight. in a world of free speech it is taken as entertaining, as a form of art, as an expression of opinion, even as an emancipatory movement of minorities it is accepted widely.
to me it is hard to understand how rap can ever be insulted, same with punk.
if I did say, e.g. public enemy is bloody crap, then this would be personal, but in a free western world I would not accept that their followers would kill me for this. they can shout back if they like. in case they would kill, they prove that they are not part of western civiliation, ummm, like quite some rednecks and skins. they just found their caves here.
but when someone generally talks bad about rap or listeners, it is like every cultural discussion. purely theoretical, spoiled with personal examples. nothing to worry. rap is not a country. it is a battlefield that CAN and SHOULD avoid physical violence.
if no_ssl was a shoemaker, and I said f*ck shoes, I never wear shoes, he is free to feel insulted and start a discussion. but how successful would he be?
to fight back, whenever rap is insulted, needs to prove how such can ever become a case, when a certain percentage of rap itself is full with insulting language.
I see more a kind of patronage message behind it, when it becomes about who is allowed to diss rap and who must protect it. who is allowed to use certain expressions upon whom?
it becomes also a sad mentality discussion, to prove that different cultural or ethnic groups are using language in a very different way, but refuse to allow others to use it their way, or to use the expressions of the other side, when they are present and can hear it.
it is akin to the sexual harrassment discussion. when women are present, you can get sued when talking in a sexist way. but rap, country, hardrock can also consist of sexist lyrics.
but I could see that no_sll has a point, when he tells, he has taken much already, and has seen blacks taking too much, and does not take it any longer. still it may be a lost case in the particular topic of rap, because it will and has to stay controversial. IMHO an erraneous monument of a conflict. it can build consciousness, but no solution. maybe even it's a freeze-status. to progress, we must leave it behind.
but to clarify, I dig a lot of rap and hip-hop.
http://www.bitza.ro/ here a european example. grassroots rapper and environmetal fighter going top charts. new album title: "suicide of an angel" - controversial as can be.