A little on this groundbreaking study from Reuters: Rap music has increasingly glamorized the use of illegal drugs, portraying marijuana, crack and cocaine as symbols of wealth and status, according to a new study by the journal Addiction Research & Theory. The report found that rap artists had moved away from the lyrics of the early days of the genre when they often warned against the dangers of substance abuse. "This study showed that in fact much early rap music either did not talk about drugs at all, or when it did had anti-drug messages," said Denise Herd, of the University of California at Berkeley, who headed the research team.

After sampling 341 lyrics from rap music's most popular hits between 1979 and 1997, the researchers found references to drugs had increased six-fold over that period. [but they didn't point out that the uniqueness or creativity in rap had dropped six-thousand fold during that same period.] - Read more about this ludicrous waste of money here.

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