It's not just rap, though - song lyrics have been poetry, for a long time now.

  Time

  Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day 
  You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. 
  Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town 
  Waiting for someone or something to show you the way. 
  
  Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. 
  You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. 
  And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. 
  No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. 
  
  So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking 
  Racing around to come up behind you again. 
  The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, 
  Shorter of breath and one day closer to death. 
  
  Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time. 
  Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines 
  Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way 
  The time is gone, the song is over, 
  Thought I'd something more to say.
  
  Home
  Home again
  I like to be here
  When I can
  
  When I come home
  Cold and tired
  It's good to warm my bones
  Beside the fire
  
  Far away
  Across the field
  Tolling on the iron bell
  Calls the faithful to their knees
  To hear the softly spoken magic spell