Pop music has become hip-hop, which dominates the charts in practically every country that has charts. It's become so ubiquitous that some American presidential candidates went out of their way to show they dig it. Dennis Kucinich employed a rap in his campaign song, Howard Dean used Wyclef Jean, and Wesley Clark quoted from "Hey Ya!"

Then again, those guys are out and John Kerry, who's in, identifies with Bruce Springsteen. For a lot of people, though, hip-hop will never have the legitimacy of rock. Jack White, the leader of The White Stripes, whose "Elephant" was touted as the most important rock album of 2003, dismisses rap music out of hand in interviews, as if he were representing a constituency. There's something elitist, maybe even racist, about the refusal to acknowledge popular taste simply because you don't share that taste.

Owing to its inherently defiant attitude, hip-hop still has an exclusionary reputation, but a lot of what offends naysayers about rap no longer applies. All art forms evolve and mutate. I still get a thrill out of "Amerikkka's Most Wanted," but I'm as happy as anyone that gangsta is now considered passe. Jay-Z retired because he exhausted the hard-knock-life ghetto philosopher thing and was too tired (and too rich) to come up with another. De La Soul producer Prince Paul once complained that hip-hop was self-limiting because too many rappers were afraid to wander outside the 'hood, but a lot of MCs are doing just that.