black music for white people

what i can't figure out is -- rap songs that make it onto the charts, artists that everyone has heard of, tupac and jay-z and 50 cent, are those all for white people pretending to be into black culture because it's phat, or whatever? like, real rap for black people consists of stuff that i've never actually heard of? or is everything nowadays just one homogeneous cultural pudding, cf. ben folds' social commentary via their cover of bitches ain't shit? i ask purely out of curiosity and ignorance, since i'm completely out of touch with whatever the music "scene" is nowadays, and would like to get this clear so as to be generally well-informed.