I think there are different cultures when it comes to different countries and different genres. Some genres are much more focused on the message than anything else. Other genres are more focused on the music itself. The most popular American music these days typically doesn't seem to have the most enriching messages. Was there really a time in the past when popular American music was so much better? I have noticed that Brazilian music traditionally has a lot of hidden meaning since the strong censorship during their military dictatorship. I think that the impact of music is probably about the same, but it's become much more diluted because everybody has access to an almost unlimited amount of music. People don't listen to the same things as much as they used to.
Thank you for your input. I agree with you when you say that the culture and country matters. You know even in the olden days, the american rap for example Tupac used to rap about the suppression of black americans by the system and the police. At least he was talking about the realities of life and how hard it was to survive as a black american at that time. BUT NOW IF YOU LISTEN TO RAP, ITS A SORRY STATE, WITHOUT MEANINGFUL MESSAGES.
Was Tupac actually all that popular in the mainstream when we has alive? I got the impression that he was a little underground. He become and icon once he was killed. Maybe there is more bad rap now then there was when Tupac was alive, but I think there's definitely a lot more good rap than there was then. Judging by how you say "if you listen to rap", I guess that you don't. As I mentioned in my previous post, there is so much music available now. It may be hard to find at first, but there is a lot of great rap out there. One rapper with a bit of fame that "talks about the realities of life" is Slug from the group Atmosphere. I highly recommend him.