Brent Staples worries that hip-hop music feeds inner-city youth "rap cuts that glorify murder and make it seem perfectly normal to spend your life in prison" ("How Hip-Hop Music Lost Its Way and Betrayed Its Fans," Editorial Observer, May 12). In doing so, he ignores a basic precept of modern music: it's about escape.
When busty pop stars sing that they love me, I, like every teenager in America, know that they are not being serious. To treat hip-hop stars any differently is to enforce a double standard. Though rappers create a fantasy that is often violent and upsetting, adolescent listeners recognize that it is a fantasy nonetheless. It's only adults who miss the big picture.
Glenn Thrope
Westport, Conn., May 12, 2005
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