similarities in rap and country music

I have noticed over the years of listening to all sorts of music and different periods of music that rap and country music have a lot of evolutionary similarities. Obviously country music is much older than rap but first I'm going to start with country. For the purposes of this article I'm going to use the original Carteer Family as the origin of country music (most everything before them was called "hillbilly music" on the radio in the beginning of the century). Groups like the carter family sang about what they knew, growing up on the farm in the country and murderers, thieves and gangsters, having a good time and religion and courtship and its heartbreak. This tradition carried on pretty well on through the seventies. Naturally, there are fringe artists, or different genres of country music that had andstill have different subject matter. I'm not getting into that, it would take pages and pages to talk about. Now for rap. Just like country music its roots are a bit difficult to trace (when it officially started) but most people in the music field agree it was sometime in the mid seventies. Again, you have a group of people making music about what they know, racisim, violence, the projects, courtship and its heartbreak, and so on. Two different groups of people making music about what they know. But somehow, in the mid eighties until now both types of music have evolved into a huge pissin' contest of "more country than thou" or more "gangsta than thou". It seems every country song you hear now has the stereotypes in it just in a different order, god, beer, trucks, bars, subtle racism towards the mideast, a refrence to a past country star, nascar. I guess they're still singing about what they know but like I said, there's this attitude of "more country than thou" about it. Just like (and it hurts me to call acts like gucci, lil wayne, 50 cent rap because its really not. Its pop) when they talk about "bitches" and monet and how many cars they have and all the weed they smoke and the almighty club. Rap used to be about spreading awareness about what was going on in the projects. The rapper would get rich, move to a better area and use his or her money to get their family out of the same terrible conditions. Any comments aside from defending your favorite musician are welcome. Remember, I'm not taking personal shots at individual artists,I'm referring to a genre of music. One last thought. I think a lot of it has to do with record companies and hollywood.

reply to post by BlueLightRain

have a lot of evolutionary similarities.

I notice that you describe only two.

about what they know

Yes, rap and country music are generally about what the artists know. But by this logic, books are also like rap music, because authors write about what they know.

there's this attitude of "more country than thou" about it

Cite some examples?

Granted, when I think of country I tend to think of Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, and perhaps grudgingly Garth Brooks, but quickly going through a bunch of more modern country songs listed on wikipedia...even including country "pop" songs, I see songs about interclass romance, there's "no place like home", generic love songs, but no "holier than thou" themes.

EDIT:
Ok, eventually I found one But having to search 20 minutes to find a single example doesn't seem like much of a trend. Certainly a far cry from your claim of "every" country song being about this now.

So again, examples?

Jesus, just trying to make convertsation...