Barack Obama praises hip-hop culture

US Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has praised hip-hop culture, saying he was "there at the beginning" of the genre.

Obama, who recently released a compilation album featuring Kanye West, told MTV News that he admired the business acumen employed by many of today's hip-hop artists.

"I'm a little older than hip-hop culture," he said. "I was there at the beginning, but I was already getting older. What I've appreciated, watching this hip-hop generation, is to see how entrepreneurial they've been.

"In the past, musicians often (at) times were commodities. They were just shuffled around. Obviously, they did well, but they didn't have the vision to say, 'I'm going to build a business. I'm going to build my own studio. I'm going to create my own production operations.'"

Despite embracing the music, Obama refused to reveal who his favourite rapper of all time was.