"are just as important as rap ability" -- and further, I say "in these times". Now, my point was to decry Toure's ham-handed statement that Hip Hop's "snarl" so to speak and edge is borne of urban influence and the like. He doesn't even credit or even attempt to acknowledge the flip side.

Now I can see if he was taking a historian's angle, but he wasn't. He was speaking of the now -- he was focusing his analysis of what Rap is made of from what he thinks he currently knows.