can you take the ego out of hip hop?

so,
this is something i've been pondering for a while,
because i have an idea for a musical project
but i'm finding it very daunting and difficult
to get off the ground.

hip hop,
from its roots,
was an ego genre.
as i understand it,
hip hop
arose from the "toasting" tradition in the caribbean
and the block party culture of america's urban centers.
DJ's and MC's trying to maintain command of center stage
through audience approval.

30 years later
("Rapper's Delight turned 25 a few weeks ago,
so let's add 5 years,
but i'm sure its more),
and we now have this "tradition" of MC's
rapping about how great they are,
how rich they are,
what a bad ass they are,
and how much better their musical crew is than all the others.

even Eminem and The Streets,
who's entire appeal is being downtrodden, poor and misunderstood,
can't seem to help
but write a few tracks per album
about how freaking brilliant they are in spite of it all.

to me,
this begs the question,
can hip hop get out from under this self-referential model?
can you remove the ego from hip hop entirely?
at that point,
would it simply be rhyming spoken word set to music?

thoughts, please.