Rap, under close scrutiny, becomes 'critic-heavy'—a unique pop opportunity for the application of Marxist & poststructural principles to the cultural production, not just reception, of texts, lyrics, art [...]. Rap is the self-conscious–self-consciousness loop academic feminists and deconstructionists drool over—and often the loop's right there on the music's surface, less to be rooted out truffle-like by the eager interpreter than the result of much such rooting by the rapper himself. But so rap, in its love of the overtly complex, often usurps the ('serious') outside critic's hallowed interpretive function: little wonder few licensed determiners of seriousness seem much disposed to take rap seriously. Just don't be duped by their rationale. Especially today, the unsubtle does not necessarily mean the simple or crude.