O'Neal Rowe, a partner with the Bostonmarketing firm MetroConcepts, said the profitpotential of the music transformed hip-hop andcorrupted it in some ways.

"Intelligent heads back in the day found waysto make this their livelihood," Rowe said. "That'swhat changed hip-hop."

Dmitri Leger, a writer and editor for TheSource magazine, addressed some audience members'concern that rap music, which began as a form ofexpression for blacks, was being taken over bywhite musicians and executives.

"Hip-hop started out as a black-on-blackconversation, but now it's a black-on-worldconversation," Leger said. "There's somethinguniquely black about hip-hop, however, that at theend of the day, white artists won't be able toduplicate."

Leger said he thought hip-hop had expandedbeyond its originally narrow definition.

"I think people have to give up on the idea offinding an artist who represents all of hip-hop,and start accepting performers for what they dowell," Leger said.

While much of the second afternoon panelfocused on how to prevent rap artists fromcompromising their music in order to succeed,panelists stressed that making money does notautomatically make one into a "sell-out."

"Being underground is not about being poor,"said Kevin Shand, a representative of RawkusRecords. "It's about what you have to trade inorder to make money."

Panelists in the afternoon also discussed thequestion of who was responsible for the messagesthat hip-hop disseminates to the public. The topicwas particularly prominent in a panel aboutfeminism and hip-hop.

Tracii McGregor, a writer for The Source, saidthat record companies spread too many images ofsex, rather than messages that would influencewomen more positively.

"We have to hear a variety of voices, but therecord industry doesn't give us that," McGregorsaid. "Women need to be shown they can negotiatetheir way without having to use sex."

Several of the afternoon panelists said theresponsibility for what gets played on the radioand TV rests in the hands of the public as well aswith the media.

"We don't decide what you're going to hear,"Shand said. "It's much more of a dialog [betweenconsumers and corporations]."

At the end of the panel discussions, McGregortold the audience that they should use what theylearned at the conference to educate people whodid not attend the conference.

"We need to take these dialogues out of HarvardUniversity and bring them out on the street," hesaid