White Rapper Spectacle -- by Dru Hepkins, February 2007
I know most of them have been booted off at this point but I'll just
drop my opinion on a few notables on or off the show:
Persia is the shows biggest disappointment. I really liked her. She can
flow, she can sing, and she's real. Persia just couldn't hold it
together. She can't freestyle and it seems like she has one written
rhyme that she spits everywhere. Persia in my opinion was the best pick
out of the bunch to have had a respectable and believable Hip Hop
career, but the girl wasn't mentally ready for this. If I were her, I
would've had a 100 fresh rhymes written before coming on the show. I
would've also simplified the rhymes in the written challenges a little
bit to make them easier to remember. You don't want to write a Big Pun
verse and try to spit it in an hour--- "In the middle of Italy..." Keep
it short and simple. The comp wasn't that heavy so you just want to at
least make sure you can execute it. She didn't even complete her last
assignment because she claimed that her head went blank. Well, so did
her career possibly.
Shamrock seems like a cool, laid back dude. I actually like the kid but
I don't think we're looking at a rap star here. Of course I could be
wrong, but I know there are hungrier, stronger rappers out there that
are more ferocious, white or black. He did have a few notable flows in
some of the challenges and I wish him luck.
Sullee perhaps had the most potential of the bunch. I have to admit, I
was rooting for the dude next to Persia. He has a decent flow and a
confident swagger. Unfortunately he's a little unfocused. The kid
could've done damage (on that show) but couldn't spit a written rhyme
challenge without stopping and screwing up. Sullee, they didn't ask you
to juggle bowling pins partner. If they had, maybe some of all those
trip ups and "damn's!" would be justified. You're supposed to be an
emcee and they asked you to spit a written verse that you had an hour to
pull together. What is his dysfunction? Sullee also went out in way that
he thought was honorable, but man---that was just plain dumb. You mean
to tell me he couldn't spit a verse against the other 2 stooges in a
challenge that was asked of him---on National TV for a shot at
$100,000??? Dude, this is Hip Hop, not the Boy Scouts. Emcees spit
against friends and foes for fun or for nothing all the time. He's not
going to receive a medal for his act of cordiality. Now you're going to
receive a life time's worth of "what if" memories. Good luck to you
to----I'll keep an ear out for ya. Sullee now gets to sit back and watch
"The King of the 'Burbs" win $100,000 and exposure he passed on.
Jus Rhyme is a very likeable character. He's intelligent and true to
himself. He's not trying embody what Hip Hop is or be someone or
something he's not. I just think Hip Hop is too image oriented for him
to fit in. He's very political and socially conscious; I think he has a
future in spoken word or a slightly different art form. His image and
what he stands for just doesn't gel well with Hip Hop. Then again, if
Aaron Carter, Nick Carter of the Back Street Boys little brother, can
make a Rap CD and find an audience than I guess anyone has a chance.
As for Jon Brown...well..I respect the fact the he believes in whatever
the hell he's talking about. He also outdid his counterparts with the
least amount of screw ups or poor performances. I think he'll end up
winning. But this guy is pushing some ridiculous "Ghetto Revival"
movement. He still has yet to explain what a ghetto revival is and what
a white kid from the suburbs has to do with it. Jon Brown's mentality is
also indicative of what's wrong with Hip Hop's newer generations. He
blatantly doesn't call himself a rapper and considers himself an
"entity". The new school generation of kids are trained well toward the
destruction of art forms en route to some kind of business
entrepreneurship. I find Jon Brown to be totally and completely
preposterous. However, who says the industry makes any sense these day.
Perhaps the self dubbed "King of the 'Burbs" has a shot at legitimacy. I
think Jon Brown should take a comedic route and we might have something
here.
White or black, short or tall, everyone is saying the same stuff
nowadays anyway. There really isn't anything groundbreaking and everyone
and their knucklehead little brother could flow now. The aforementioned
statement is starting to include more and more white people now too. So
what?
Regardless of race, you just have to be nasty. On the show, Everlast
made a reference to Tiger Woods in Golf iterating the same sentiment.
Race is slowly becoming less of an issue for a great many things. On the
"White Rapper Show", I don't see any of them as nasty or deserving of a
deal. Good luck to them all. Serch, great show----bad contestants. No
matter who wins, I'm most likely done with them after the show ends.