Ashley Judd's new, highly publicized memoir, All That Is Bitter & Sweet, has been in stores for a week, and the actress is already making waves for some harsh judgments she made about rap music in the book. Judd wrote that she was upset when she saw that Snoop and Diddy were performing at the MTV World AIDS Day concert because "most rap and hip-hop music -- with its rape culture ... is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny."

While many of us who follow, love and consider ourselves cultural constituents of hip-hop might concede that some rap music is undeniably misogynistic, we also stand up for it when we feel it's being unfairly attacked. I have regularly defended hip-hop culture from its detractors, and upon hearing Judd's sweeping condemnation -- from which she later backed down after harsh criticism from The Roots drummer ?uestlove and others -- I was ready to assume my normal position.

But she is not your usual hip-hop-hating suspect (think Bill O'Reilly). She's a noted progressive, and her work around the world speaks for itself, so instead of a knee-jerk response, I considered the possibility that her claim was true -- not of hip-hop culture, but of rap music.

There's a regularly stated but not always understood distinction between rap music and hip-hop culture. Rap music is one element of hip-hop culture, which is a broader, generational phenomenon that includes a number of artistic elements, ways of being and speaking, and various social elements such as fashion and a particularly entrepreneurial spirit.

While rap music derives from the continuum of black oral and folk traditions, it, like other black musical forms, has been co-opted and commodified by mainstream America. In some of its most commercial forms, rap music is misogynistic, consumeristic and violent. And yes, it also reflects the rape culture that is a part of popular American culture.

Hip-hop culture, on the other hand, actually counters the rape culture of rap music in some interesting and powerful ways. Consider the work of Salamishah Tillet, founder of A Long Walk Home, or see Byron Hurt's Beyond Beats and Rhymes or Immortal Technique's "Dance With the Devil" for ready references. And we should laud artists like Snoop or Diddy for their attempts to support vital efforts such as the YouthAIDS movement, because although they may be (or have been) guilty of contributing to America's rape culture, their potential to shine light on these very issues is reflected in their influence on popular culture in general.

Three years ago on Larry King Live, Snoop said, "In the past I've always made music that was very insulting to women, because that's what I was taught. That's what I was brainwashed not to know. As I get older, and with my wife and my daughter and my mother and my grandmother, I tend to make more records that are ... aimed at telling the woman how beautiful she is and how she's appreciated and how I apologized for being so brainwashed and not knowing that I'm supposed to respect a woman."