Legal entanglements for local rappers Beanie Sigel and Cassidy and record executive Alton "Ace Capone" Coles have brought the issue closer to home.
Sigel has federal convictions for drug possession and weapons offenses; he was acquitted in an attempted-murder case.
Cassidy, charged in a high-profile shoot-out that police believed was tied to a drug war, was found guilty of manslaughter.
Is rap music a cause of violence? Or does it mirror life on the streets of America's struggling cities?
The questions emerge again in the case against Coles, who, authorities say, used his entertainment business as a front for a $25 million crack- and cocaine-distribution network.
Further blurring the line, Coles produced and starred in a rap music video, New Jack City: The Next Generation, glorifying the rise of a Southwest Philadelphia drug gang. Both the music and the story line celebrate the power and swagger of drug dealers.
Coles is scheduled to go on trial in January.
At a recent congressional hearing, rap was both defended and decried.
The hearing included testimony from record company executives, recording artists, and members of African American and women's rights groups who complained of the misogynistic - anti-women - lyrics.
"Not all black people and not all lovers of hip-hop endorse the materialism, violence and misogyny that characterizes commercial rap," testified Lisa Fager Bediako of Industry Ears, a nonprofit that monitors the music industry.
"Our culture has more to do with [respect]," said E. Faye Williams, chair of the National Congress of Black Women.
"In our culture, the gangster . . . the thug . . . the pimp . . . the prostitute is the exception."
But David Banner, a performer and producer with SRC Recordings, who wrote the lyrics for "Like a Pimp," warned against attempts to censor or silence rap artists.
"Rap music is the voice of the underbelly of America," he told the committee. "Drugs, violence, and the criminal element were around long before hip-hop existed."
So, too, he said, were commercial attempts to profit from them.
"This capitalistic trend was not created nor introduced by hip-hop," he said. "It's been here.
"It's the American way."
