The groups I mention all consciously identify their music as rap, often citing the American rappers they listened to growing up, yet they still have evolved styles of hip-hop quite distinct from what comes out of the US. When I mentioned the commonalities between rap and other musical-poetic forms like latin american accordion music (sorry I don't know the offical label for this genre), I was emphasizing that rap's appeal likely has its roots in a cross-cultural human appreciation of musical-poetic forms, I wasn't trying to link it to any specific african roots. My line of thought is more that you might expect artforms like rap to pop up out of cultures spontaneously, the way human cultures often produce similar practices for common ends even though they're isolated from one another. That's what I think south american accordion music might be an example of. That's not to deny there may be specifically african roots to rap, and there are most definately african-american roots to it. I was just trying to account for how rap could spread so rapidly across cultures. Also to be clear, when I am talking about a human appreciation for musical-poetic forms, I'm trying to a make a distinction between appreciation of rap-like artforms and just music generally.
Wojtek, I don't take issue with any of your complaints about arrogant and passive-agressive behavior and the ways they manifest. I just want to clarify your statements about hip-hop and it's presence in the world were way off. It may seem pedantic to point this stuff out but I often feel people who have some particular gripe with hip-hop can feel free to additionally denigrate it in whatever way they want, in ways they'd probably refrain from in discussing other kinds of popular music. Glad you found the overview helpful, I was worried that I got too obsessive in dredging up so many details to make my case.
Arash