It's hard to say which was sadder, reading last week about soul superstar Curtis Mayfield's painful passing, or realizing the obituary was getting bumped off the music news pages by the latest high-profile arrest from the rap world. In this case it was Puffy Combs getting booked on weapons charges following a shooting inside a New York nightclub. The back-to-back dispatches were an unpleasant reminder of how Mayfield's hope of using black music to reflect and uplift his culture has too often been frayed by the collective actions of Combs and others.

A towering musical presence among his generation, Mayfield redefined soul and R&B music in the '60s and '70s with his soothing falsetto voice, insightful, socially relevant lyrics and groundbreaking guitar rhythms. A soft-spoken, religious and devoted family man, Mayfield nonetheless embodied urban cool, sporting a gruff beard and wearing waist-length leather jackets.

And at a time when Motown hitmakers were mum about social ills and the dashed dreams of the big city (quick, name the label's '60s civil rights or anti-war anthem, because Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" didn't come out until '71), Mayfield was penning songs such as "Keep on Pushing," "People Get Ready" and "We're a Winner." When heard crackling through AM radio speakers, the songs spoke first and foremost to black America with a message of perseverance and hope. Mayfield wasn't above having some fun, either; En Vogue's sexy smash single from 1992, "Giving Him Something He Can Feel," was a Mayfield cover.

Contrast the complex Mayfield with Combs and too many of his rap partners who, benefiting from the musical inroads Mayfield made, now seem solely interested in themselves and their riches. Combs' latest run-in with the law -- prosecutors say the rapper pulled a semiautomatic gun inside a club, then jumped into his Lincoln Navigator and led police racing down Eighth Avenue, running 11 red lights -- came just eight months after he was accused of breaking a record company executive's jaw. (Combs skated when the exec reportedly accepted the rapper's $500,000 out-of-court settlement offer.)

Meanwhile, the same day last week when readers found out about Combs' weapons charges, they saw wire reports that rapper Eminem, last year's breakout star, who rhymed about killing his daughter's mother and then stuffing her body in the trunk of a car, was being sued for slander by his grandmother. She objected to Eminem's plan for an upcoming track that may include using an old recording of his uncle who died in 1991. This, just three months after the rapper's mother filed a $10 million slander suit against him. He told the music press she was a chronic drug user.

Meanwhile, over the same weekend, rapper Noreaga was busted on drug charges. And of course just four weeks ago, superstar Jay-Z made headlines when he had to post $50,000 bail after being arrested for stabbing music exec Un Rivera at a New York club.

Several obituaries suggested Mayfield's seminal work, the No. 1 soundtrack to "Superfly" (1972), laid the groundwork for today's hardcore rap music. Mayfield was certainly among the first to give mainstream listeners a guided tour through ghetto drug life. And to an extent, there are several now-familiar portraits in songs like "Little Child Runnin' Wild" ("Broken home/Father's gone/Mama tired/So he's all alone"), "Freddie's Dead" ("Another junkie plan/Pushin' dope for The Man") and of course, Mayfield's soul classic, "Pusherman" ("I'm your Mama/I'm your Daddy/I'm that nigga/In the alley").

True, Mayfield never would have used the overtly violent images NWA opted for on "Straight Outta Compton," but the groundbreaking gangsta rap group was, in a sense, picking up where the singer left off, describing the hard-as-nails pain and frustration of ghetto life. And to this day scores of rappers such as Lauryn Hill tap into Mayfield's legacy by building songs around reliance and faith.

But the crucial difference between the celebrated soul singer and so much of today's hip-hop is that while Mayfield chronicled the vicious cycles of the inner city, he never glorified them. In fact, as he told writer Alan Light during a 1993 Rolling Stone interview, Mayfield was concerned when he finally saw the action-packed, blaxploitation classic about a Harlem pusher looking to get out of the drug game. "You could see the surface was quite glitzy with the clothes, and the cars -- in many ways it looked like a cocaine commercial!" said the singer from his bed, where he spent the last nine years of his life following an onstage rigging accident that left him paralyzed. "That sort of pushed me the wrong way when I was watching it."

Mayfield explained that the music to "Superfly" was written specifically to counter the images of the film. "I did the music and lyrics to be a commentary, as though someone was speaking as the movie was going." Not surprisingly, Mayfield's sometimes preachy drug lament, "No Thing on Me (Cocaine Song)," also from "Superfly," sounds like it was sung by a man who'd seen too many friends fall to addiction.

Compare that with the approach of today's bestselling rap acts. Back in early December when Jay-Z was booked for assault, an editor at rap magazine the Source told a newspaper reporter the news was doubly shocking because Jay-Z represented the "thinking man's rapper." Hmmm. Here's a quick lyric sample from "It's Alright" and "Nigga What, Nigga Who (Originator '99)," two songs off his 1998, four-times platinum "Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life" album:

"We can ill if you wanna ill, smoke if you wanna smoke
Kill if you wanna kill, loc if you wanna loc
It's all right, you heard? It's all right, yeah yeah
I need a ho' in my life to blow on my dice"

"Motherfuckers wanna act loco,
Hit em wit, numerous shots with the .44
Faggots wanna talk to po-po's,
Smoke em like coco
Fuck rap, coke by the boatloads
Fuck dat, on the run-by, gun high, one eye closed"

Mayfield, who infused his music with calls for community, respect, self-determination and hope, no doubt would have been heartbroken to think he had a hand in inspiring a generation of young stars who broadcast to America a picture of black culture focused on guns, drugs and whores.