annbronze,
I agree with your statements that vast sums of money are at stake here. Those profits come directly from wallets like yours and mine. This music obviously has a market, thus the profit.
Imus was toppled in a very short period of time due to well placed economic pressure. Identify those economic supports that back this music and apply the economic pressure.
I'm from the Barry White, Marvin Gay, Temptations, Issac Hayes era when you at least would hear an artist profess his love for a LADY (Not Ho's)or show his sadness when things didn't work out as planned. The true artist, balladiers turned thosed real life scenarios into REAL music that transcended RACE. White people want to hear Smokey sing "Oh, baby, baby" just like I do and they can relate. From the suburbs to the inner city, we knew what Smokey was talking about and he has never uttered the word "Ho" in his music, which I might add, is timeless.
Rap is not now what rap started out to be.
I remember Grand Master Flash rapping about his experiences. I remember when MTV was only on for a few hours daily, with Micheal Jackson being the only black artist seen. My friends would ask me, how do you watch this stuff? Music videos were a new concept.
Somewhere down the line, rap got to be about
jewelry, money, liquor, beautiful women at a man's beck-and-call-for-sex and fast, expensive cars and drugs.