Was your show this week a repeat? I did not see the description of it on rightalk.

Yes it was. I'm just too busy at the moment and Ace is too chicken to do it alone.

At the risk of sounding like somebody's Grandpa, I'm going to ask the obvious question:

Why are you wasting time listening to this crap when you could be listening to people who know how to play music?

I hear this idiocy booming from the cars as they go by my apartment. (And I do live among black folks, at least when I'm in New York.) Constantly inciting young black men to anger and violence does produce the predictable result. Nothing about this crap qualifies as music. It just plain hurts my ears.

Now, I know that this is precisely the affect that the young want to produce upon the elderly (and I'm 56), so I'm probably wasting my time. When I was a kid, we produced legions of acid and metal rock bands that played ugly, loud and abrasive shit. Some of them made millions, but they were ridiculous and horrible.

But, why are you contributing to the enrichment of these folks when you could be contributing to the careers of people who can actually, you know, play music? Why are you interested in anything that a DJ might do or say? A DJ is just some fucking moron who spins records. Have you ever listened to somebody who knows their chords and scales, and has actually studied the great traditions of jazz and blues?

The sentiment expressed in the title of this movie is enough to drive me away. I grew up in small town Illinois, and the grandiose machismo of this title was the standard obsession of boring, moronic young men who usually spend their adult lives as garbage men.

I do understand what you are rebelling against in the adult world. It really is awful, the putrid sanctimony, prudery and sexlessness of the politically correct era in which you were raised. The castrated role that the educated, intellectual society wants men to play is despicable and laughable. But the answer is not the glorification of the dumbest aspects of black culture. There are some other alternatives.

I'm not one of those black worshippers, so don't typecast me that way. But, black culture has a brilliant musical tradition based in religion that should be getting your attention. So does white culture.

Seems to me that this "50 Cent" would be best ignored, for his own good as well as your own. I probably was just as loony about some similar shit when I was young, although I don't recall it. When I was 14 years old, I was playing in jazz and blues bands with 50 and 60 year old men.

Please explain, if you can, why you are paying attention to this monstrosity.

Get rich or die tryin'? How about getting an education? That's a more certain way to wealth than is rapping, whatever its social message. For all the 50 cents out there, there are thousands of people who don't even have a penny.

Shouting Thomas wrote: Why are you wasting time listening to this crap when you could be listening to people who know how to play music?

I listen to all kinds of music. I have over a thousand cds, spanning every genre imaginable.

Constantly inciting young black men to anger and violence does produce the predictable result.

I do not believe that rap music incites anyone to violence. If people actually listened to rap, they’d see that more often than not the message is that violence is an unfortunate byproduct of the ghetto. I’m not saying there isn’t sometimes a glorification of violence, but again, that has been present in musical genres throughout history. When Johnny Cash sings about taking a shot of cocaine and shooting his woman down, no one thought he was encouraging people to do that.

The sentiment expressed in the title of this movie is enough to drive me away. I grew up in small town Illinois, and the grandiose machismo of this title was the standard obsession of boring, moronic young men who usually spend their adult lives as garbage men.

Well, not for me. I was born in the Soviet Union where my parents fully expected to have nothing their entire lives. Moved to the US with a couple of hundred dollars in total. They had no idea what would be. Their motivation, at least in part, was ‘get rich or die tryin’. I celebrate money. It buys freedom in a way that most people who have never lived without it can not imagine. Jay-Z rapped, ‘If you grew up with holes in your zapatos, you’d celebrate the minute you were having dough.’ The reality is that for a lot of people born in the ghetto, they will never be rich. When you’re surrounded by people that don’t take education seriously, or that don’t work or that do drugs, you’ll think that’s normal. It’s an extremely hard cycle to escape.

Seems to me that this "50 Cent" would be best ignored, for his own good as well as your own. …. Please explain, if you can, why you are paying attention to this monstrosity.

The fact is that 50 is a massive seller. I mean, look, he’s got a 28 year old white conservative girl defending him on her blog. At least try to understand his appeal to so many people. It might just be that people like dancing around to him singing ‘In Da Club’. And, really, I think that’s a good enough reason to enjoy someone’s music. Like I wrote, I’m not looking for lessons from my music.

Dave wrote: Get rich or die tryin'? How about getting an education? That's a more certain way to wealth than is rapping, whatever its social message. For all the 50 cents out there, there are thousands of people who don't even have a penny.

That’s true. But so what? Why is it 50 Cent’s responsibility to tell people to get an education? He raps what he knows, whether it’s sparring with other rappers or rhyming about selling drugs. I don’t need him to be some kind of spokesperson. No one expects that from any white musicians.

Uhh, you're missing the point of my post. No where do I say 50 cent should tell anyone whether to get an education or not.

All I am saying is that if one wants to get rich, then one should be listening to, say, a lecture on physics, not rap. Getting an education is highly correlated with creating wealth for one's self. Rap is, well, a crap shoot, just like all other forms of entertainment/sports.

A poor person, no matter if he is black, brown, yellow, green, or gold, has a far better chance of escaping grinding poverty by getting an education than he does by becoming a musician/rapper/athlete/etc.

(That poor people suffer from crappy schools is another issue entirely and not even germane to my larger point.)

But there's a million movies about a poor kid making it through dance, acting, sports or some other far-out career. How come they don't criticized like this?

I think Karol wins on points here, if you count the comments, which I have to admit begrudingly because I disagree with her perspective. I think your only serious misfire here Karol is when you say that rappers usually talk about violence as just an unfortunate byproduct of ghetto life. C'mon. I don't listen to as much present-day mainstream hip-hop as you do, but I know the lyrics to some of it, and there's just so much outright glorification of crime and violence. I mean, totally random example how about that Akon and Young Jeezy song that they play every five minutes on hip-hop radio? It certainly makes it sound pretty cool to be "on the block disobeying the law", "pants saggin' with your gun in your drawers" etc.

Well, I criticize them. See my blog post on the documentary Hoop Dreams, for example.

As for why these movies get made, well, people are sentimental and they like to see a poor kid become a star. But just because people like to see these types of movies does not mean that this is a sure route out of poverty.

If you had to pick a poor kid out of the phone book and determine how he would lift himself out of poverty more often than not you would be wrong if you said "via music/movies/sports/whatever." Education is the only sure-fire way to lift one's self out of poverty.

Celebrity is a one-in-a-million shot. For every Britney Spears, there are tens of thousands of poor kids on the Bayou who will remain on the Bayou for want of an education.

One has to wonder... would Karol even make an issue of this if she didn't want to jump Fitty's bones?

Yeah...gotta agree with Karol on this one, Dave. I decided to do the whole education-out-of-the-ghetto-thing and not a day goes by that I wish I hadn't just learned to play tennis like the williams sisters.

50 insists on videotaping all sexual encounters for legal reasons and for personal enjoyment, just FYI.

What the hell are you people talking about? Rap is all about violence and I dont want any rap if there aint some serious violence and bitch slappin' and most of all I want violence against the police I want..."cops get more nervous than thursdays on the box". Why are you people acting as if you care if these poor people live or die or how the black community digs it's way out of poverty? Who is the cherub of peace in here? I come from brooklyn and I love strictly the most gutter, straight ghetto lyrics I can find behind the most sinister beats.Rap doesnt promote violence, ignorance and frustration does. There isnt a person among us who can say one way or the other what someone else should do(for better or worse). Live your own lives, I promise 50 couldnt give a rat's ass if any of us lives or dies, Karol included(nor should he). If you like his music, great. If you hate his music, also great(I happen to think Curtis "mush mouth" Jackson is weak and couldnt shine Lloyd Bank's shoes skillwise and I think Banks is just pretty good). One lesson you learn growin' up poor, is that Darwin wassnt kidding. Yeah education is a better escape from the hood than entertainment, but so what? 50 got nothing to do with and shouldnt have anything to do with "uplifting" the youth of the ghetto, keepin' it real is for poor people, that is why I have no respect for Tupac(I think if there was ever a schmuck who deserved to die it was him). How dumb do you have to be to get ghetto after you become a millionaire? 50 is like most people who actually come from the hood that make money, they leave and if they want to see some people from the hood...they invite them to their house. Rap dont kill people, people kill people. There are so many problems in the "ghetto" that rap doesnt even make the top 1,000. Peace, love and if you find yourself in the hood, keep your doors locked and your head on a swivle.

This has nothing to do with the discussion but I thought it was pretty funny. Apparently, Samuel L. Jackson was asked to be in 50's flick and he said no:

According to Samuel L.Jackson,"I mean how does he get to work with Jim Sheridan and I don't? Jackson was quoted as saying. What is it about 50 Cent that makes Jim Sheridan say, 'I'd really like to make a movie with him? I like listening to 50 Cent and I can groove to his music but I don't want to groove to him on screen, just yet. Maybe if he does five movies and he shows some talent.

And in response 50 said, "I don't even see where Samuel fits into my life story anyway, unless he plays one of the crackheads. He was a crackhead originally, right? So I come from being a rapper, and he comes from being a crackhead."

I mean, totally random example how about that Akon and Young Jeezy song that they play every five minutes on hip-hop radio? It certainly makes it sound pretty cool to be "on the block disobeying the law", "pants saggin' with your gun in your drawers" etc.

But it's so absurd. Obviously you can not find Young Jeezy on the block disobeying the law because he's on the radio and therefore has money to be anywhere but the block. I actually like that song and love leaving messages on Dawn Summers' voicemail telling her she can find me on the block disobeying the law. I think people see through the boasting in rap. It's a story like so many other genres of music.

Rap plays down to the lowest common denominator and suckers young white kids into buying music that mocks their own culture and values. That being said its a free country people can do what they want. As usual real conservatives wont waste their money on this garbage, and his 15 minutes are ticking.

Karol wrote about her parents experience when they first came to the US and I think that her family has a lot in common with every other poor black mother trying to put food on her table.How does anyone mistake what "get rich or die trying" means. Ambition is all a poor young man or woman has in a world that gives you nothing.Every person has a gift,the only thing that makes a difference between people is how hard and how well they use that gift to succeed in life. Make that money as aggressively as you can,for as long as is possible or watch your dream die. Do what others only whisper about, what others say is impossible. Those who say something is impossible are afraid to dream, their fear is what destroys the ambition of those to weak to reach for their goals.

First of all sex, guns, and drugs have been a glorified part of Amercia for decades. I dont understand what all the contraversy is about when it comes down to this one movie. What about all the mofia movies (Scarface, Gotti,and Bugsy) just to name a few; represent the same type of story line:Scuuess through murder, sex and drugs. So I really sont understand and I am really trying to keep an open mind and not go racial; but what other choice do I have!!!!