>All I'm saying is that given that many, many people listen to hip hop (which is, incidentally, a much more expansive genre than Post Malone) and very, very, few people commit violent crimes, it is clear that hip hop is probably not the proximal cause of violent crime.

This "crime is rare" argument is a fully general way to argue that almost nothing causes crime. Because crime is rare, by your logic, we know e.g. that gun ownership and poverty cannot be proximal causes, since gun ownership and poverty are both common.

Ultimately this line of reasoning is simply innumerate. Rare events can have common causes. For example, even if house fires are rare, they can still be caused by e.g. careless cigarette smokers, even if careless cigarette smokers are common.

>focusing on it as a potential intervention seems off base.

I never said it should be focused on as an intervention or it should be banned. All I said was likes_hiphop is "a variable that is likely to exert causal influence".

>A focus on hip hop is extremely flaccid.

Tell that to the guy who introduced "likes_hiphop" as a topic of discussion :-)