I used to listen music through an mp3 player every day. I had a nickname of 'headphones' for a year once lol
Over time, I realized that almost all music is mindless. Like you learn absolutely nothing listening to it, so it really just serves as an escape from the present. There are conscious rappers, but there's also a realization that you can learn 10x as much by reading a book on the topic instead of a 4 minute song.
I started listen to podcasts like 20 years ago before they were even popular (thank you Foxxhole) and weaned myself off of music for the sake of music. I do comedy podcasts here and there, but mostly shifted to podcasts about my hobbies as well as learning and politics.
Typically I only listen to rap when I'm pregaming/at the club... it's fun when I'm lit but otherwise, listening to murder and drug-talk is at best unproductive in terms of the life I want to live and the things I want to accomplish. I do think that if I still listened to rap regularly, I'd be more likely to put myself in "when keeping it real goes wrong" situations.
