No more than TV, Movies, etc. Rap is not church, it is mere entertainment. This is what gets me about Bill O'reilly. He will trash a Rapper for the lyrics of his song -- why does he not trash actors why play bad characters? He seems to think that rappers should be condemned for writing and singing about pinps and hoes and the like, where movie actors can act about those same topics without his scorn. Where is his outrage at James Gandolfini? He is no better or worse than the rappers who sing about crime - he acts about crimes.
Dead wrong. In the inner city (which I know very, very well, having lived there most of my adult life), rap is a religion. It defines the life of the people who blast it out of their cars 24-7.