It's always amused me that the children of middle-england could find commonality with the low-life of US slums. It's not just rap, it goes back a long way, before, even, the Velvet Underground/Warhol nonsense and the wierd hero worship of junkie jazz musicians in the '50s.
I suppose it's preferable to the vile computer-generated shite of "Electronic Dance Music"; the sound of a computer mastubating. Not music but recreational noise for the hard-of-thinking.