So I brought up some dancehall artists elsewhere and it was mentioned that 'they're all just a bunch of violent homophobes'

Well yes, but they have good tunes. Lots of musicians are raging arseholes, I think you can like the music without agreeing with or liking them personally.

Broader debate - in order to get musical influences and hear music outside of your normal cultural sphere, it's inevitable that you're gonna have to face foriegn cultures, even if they do make you uncomfortable.

Eg. a lot of 'urban' music gets pretty violent, that's the sort of environment it originates from - if middle class music fans are going to fetishise the music that originates from that environment then we have to make some attempt to understand it, and suspend our moral / political judgements for long enough to judge the music in it's own right and as an expression of its environment...

Thoughts anyone?