In recent years, rap music has become a cultural staple of American society. Rap tops record charts and booms loudly from jeeps rolling through urban streets and suburban strip mall parking lots; it pops up in movie soundtracks and out of the mouth of the Pillsbury Dough Boy; it gains money and prestige for some of the artists who make it; and it shouts an anger and hopelessness that many people would like to forget exist. Rap speaks loudly and incisively, softly and offensively, ambiguously and clearly, but most of all it speaks, and it has become increasingly difficult to ignore.