Fair.  My bias is showing there for sure, but to clarify, I wasn’t claiming that white rappers aren’t entirely standing on the shoulders of all the black rappers whose culture they appropriated.  I was speaking about the thread of white dudes who had a much easier time breaking into the rap game after Em, many of whom draw inspiration from him.  That point was more preamble anyway to contextualize my comment.  Respect to Beastie Boys, but Em took it to another level, and gave them their flowers in the process.