I ruled out watching Vh1’s “Ego Trip’s (White) Rapper Show,” much as I did “Flavor of Love 2″–it seemed just a little too low for me to go. But now I randomly watch the reruns throughout the week, and it has charmed me–I actually settle in when I come across it, looking forward to the hour ahead. This is mostly due to MC Serch, who reminds me of the good teachers I’ve come across who not only know their shit, but also care very much that you (coddled student) understand both your promise and your idiocy. Serch is not a dilettante jumping on the reality show bandwagon. And, he has a little more knack for the drama of such a show than other experts gone TV (like Top Chef’s Tom Colicchio who always looks a little incredulous that he is on TV with people he can’t stand–actually, come to think of it Serch and Colicchio share a certain reassuring beefy jowly white man look–it must test well).
The Expert Look?
I like that Serch gets pissed off when the rappers get stupid, and calls them on their lameness. He wants these contestants to succeed, and he also respects the field they are competing to get into.
I like that he yells “Whoop whoop” every time he walks in the house, and I like that he has gray hair.
This leads me to the other charms of the show–the fact that hardly anybody on it is completely physically attractive. These have much more in common with the original cast from Real World San Francisco than with anything we see on reality TV now. The most standardly pretty participant got kicked off after dusting off a prepared rhyme as fresh (but she did climb into bed with some contestant for that ever icky staple of reality tv–two heads moving under one comforter). The contestants live in an all right place, but as far as reality shows go, it isn’t a palace. It looks like they have to cook for themselves, and they sleep in bunk-beds, with none of the shan-gri-la upgrades that Top Model or Making the Band (oh, and let’s not forget that A/B-List show (thankfully I don’t know the full name of that TV travesty–though I do love the game show hostess’s accent and mail order bride hair).
The show also brings on people that I never get to see on TV. Prince Paul makes me happy every time he and Serch compare notes about who should go. There is such a nice lack of nonsense. And–none of the guests look overdone in makeup or wardrobe. Anyone on the show looks like they had some coffee, showed up on set, and did a little TV as a curiosity. This is a nice casual touch. Even though it says nothing about white rappers, it gives me a tiny sense of the rap culture that still has it’s day job in the world.
So why all this fuss about this little jaunt into VH1’s ever expanding celebreality? Well, in the last show I watched, Persia got kicked off, and I’m not sure I will keep watching. As much as I liked Serch, my favorite part was when he called Persia “ma” and watched out for her. In turn, it was her job to always step up and have the most interesting thing to say (more or less). She had me at hello as one of the few “rappers” on the show who I was even interested in watching. She could bring out some alright rhymes, and she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. I wrote her outbursts off to stupid reality television and the prodding of the producers. In all, Persia was my favorite.
Her freezing in the limelight (which happens over and over again) made me lose my appetite for her as a character. In one sense, watching her bravado as she goes on and on about how she will win, or how she will not forget her rhyme, or how she will not let herself freeze, is poignant and a nice compact little study of why we should all not talk about our future plans until they are accomplished–because it sucks to bear witness to the failure to follow through. It also makes good television because we all fail our own expectation of ourselves at some point, and it is humiliating and human and whatnot. In TV though, aren’t our protagonists supposed to get over that fault and do good? I would have adored Persia, and this mediocre show if that is what happened. Instead, it just became another junky show, full of people who aren’t really as majestic as I almost got in my head they were. If I want to watch people have a lot of talent and then not work too hard at it, I could call up half the people I went to school with. Which is why I loved this episode, and hate this episode. It revealed too much, and not enough.
Serch cried as he told her to step off, and Persia was all tears and aweariment as she left. And now, there are three guys left that I have no affection for–well except for the rapper for social justice that looks like he is still in middle school. He reminds me of watching my little brother start middle school, and wishing desperately I could fast forward things for him because it was going to be rough (this guy (not my brother) looks and acts the part–all attempt, with none of the cool).
So, 3 rappers left. Will I watch the last episodes? Watching the contestants constantly prove that they don’t have a chance to be taken seriously does have its own pleasure, but with Persia gone, I can’t pretend I’m watching it for any other reason (and the line was already thin to begin with).
Leave a Reply