The Journal

Issue date: 3/1/07 Section: Opinion/Editorial

Nikole M. Brown

From Vanilla Ice to Insane Clown Posse to The Beastie Boys, since the '80s white rappers have blended into the music scene, but none have emerged so triumphantly as Eminem.


VH1 capitalized off this diversity surge in music to invent "The White Rapper Show." The show pits 10 white rappers against one another in a quest to sharpen rhyming skills, gain respect, earn $100,000 and venture into the music industry as the new great white hope, while living together in the Bronx at "The White House." The show is hosted by MC Serch, one piece of the '90s rap duo 3rd Bass who has not been heard from for the better part of two decades.


The show's sponsor, "Ego Trip," was once a famed magazine but now a producer of television shows and books geared toward the rap industry. The sponsor said the show was supposed to be about race and context of white culture versus the hip-hop culture, but played out on television as a parody of the white rapper.


The contestants sport such names as Dasit, Persia and 100 Proof and make you wonder what exactly the producers were looking for. Just like a "Real World" casting, characters seemed to be picked for the sake of conflict, drama and comic relief. Lacking in originality, the urban-wannabe paradigms show off their tall T's, tattoos, bandanas and fluency in ghetto, while trying to convince Serch they have what it takes to rap their way to fame.


None play into the role of rap caricature as much as John Brown, self proclaimed "King of the 'Burbs" and leader of the ghetto revival. He gives so many vague arguments about bringing back the ghetto with music and "infrostructure" that the audience can never tell what he means and one might wonder if he even knows what he means.


Another character audiences love to hate is Persia, a tough talking, confrontational New Yorker who prefers to call herself "the bitch." She landed herself on Serch's naughty list when she dropped N-bombs several times throughout the first episode.

As punishment she was forced to wear a heavy chain with "N-word" across it in glittery letters. At the end of the day she was apologetic, but backtracked later, and used the word again.


The fact is, nigger, nigga and negro, whatever is said, are just words. For many who have had the words directed towards them, however, including an entire older generation of blacks, there is a emotional attachment to the words. Her blatant disregard for the gravity of the word and her excuse that there are no colors and that everyone is her nigga, is useless when the word was founded by hatred.

Continued...

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