Written by Drew Ricketts

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx-SBj8FLQU[/youtube]

Kay Slay and Buffie the Body premiered a clip from their upcoming reality show (?) that follows a tired, prolix script in the same way that a Mexican soap opera would. There are repetitive arguments between Drama King and Buffie about how she manages her booty as a career, and why she should avoid cooking pork in his house. DJ Kay Slay is a sage in most things having to do with hip hop beef. He has mediated conflicts, incited them and released beef tracks to the public faster than artists could hold press conferences to diffuse them. He should stick to doing beef records and making Papoose out to be the next hope. His reality show plans roll out the same bedraggled topics of rap reality shows past: booty, sex, strip clubs, fish-out-of-water adaptation and proud ignorance.

Television is not exactly the high watermark for visual entertainment anyway but I have become accustomed to at least a mansion a la “Flavor of Love” over the fifth floor walk-up presented here. Buffie’s bottom is the main character and the revenge plots include her returning to the strip club for ass-shaking vindication. Salt-N-Pepa have also been commissioned for reality show fame; and hip hop’s own beloved son Nasir Jones plans to star in one with wife Kelis.

Reality shows are the bottom rung of the media culture clusterfuck so it figures rappers, rockers, and part-time stars will line up to be included in the race for pilots.

Ice-T did his School of Rap shtick with Manhattan private school students. It was a vanishing point for the deep abyss of reality shows dedicated to hip hop stars past and present. No intrigue can come from a show about rap that does not deal specifically with a story arc the masses can digest.

Flava Flav seeking love where it’s escaped him and several baby mothers is palatable only because you know some contending ex-strippers will be eliminated, some salvaged for a saliva-drenched final round.

To an extent, even “Making The Band” had a promising storyline drawn from the eventual curiosity about how a group with no good rappers can make it in the rap game. Diddy was determined to make the Bad News Bears out of his team once he realized that Bad Boy could no longer pump the prime for one-hit wonders.
That’s the inherent problem of these vehicles: without the crash and burn there is no other reason to watch. DMX is Earl Simmons officially now. The appositive “also known as Earl Simmons” has appeared in more related articles about his drug abuse than “DMX” has appeared as top billing for a concert lately. His short-lived BET series followed him through rehab rather than the recording studio. If there were one or two reality shows about hip hop that dealt with public skewering or unjust scrutiny, it might be more bearable to tune in to “Flavor of Love Charm School.” Expecting Flavor Flav to represent for all of hip hop is ridiculous and unfair but expecting one reality show to deal with hip hop without ongoing buffoonery associated with rap stars is reasonable.

Documenting Reverend Run’s life has become the hip hop “Cosby Show,” counteracting some of the other messages floating around in the reality complex. Reverend Run is responsible about his programming but the vanilla subject matter, like where his daughters will purchase their first upscale apartment, will never match the ratings of an Osbourne family show.

“The White Rapper Show” valiantly tries for high-brow hip hop satire by bringing in MC Serch, Brand Nubian, Prince Paul and others to mock the aspirations of white rappers far and wide. Sadly, it only manages to make martyrs out of the unsuspecting guests as each realizes the joke is on them well before the show’s over. They huff and puff their way to elimination wondering why they bothered with rapping of all hobbies to occupy. (Who remembers Persia wearing the N-word chain? Now who remembers any rap she ever spit….?)

In fact, I can list more profligate moments on “Flavor of Love,” “White Rappers Show, ” and “Making The Band” than I can redeeming moments or character epiphanies. Network television producers mine for the worst possible human beings to fill the rolls for one disaster after another. With Three 6 Mafia availing themselves for a show, they have no reason to accept nameless saps when unequivocally famous rap stars will volunteer their humiliation.

Television cannot make a reviled public personality into a universally appreciated one. Barry Bonds learned that from his ESPN show. TV can give most sides to a story though, as shown in VH1′s Behind the Music series which tends to collect accounts of an artist from all parties involved in her life/rise to stardom. The only side I can see presented in rap’s few dishonorable reality programs is the ugly one. Either it’s has-beens looking for a reason to return to the spotlight (DMX, Rev Run) or would-bes staring awestruck at the Industry and its players (the minions to Dame Dash in Ultimate Hustler). Leveling the playing field is one possible recourse. A Joe Budden reality show or a Saigon show might strike more of a chord with me because they are formidable artists dealing with changes in their profession to the most striking ends.

Any more train wrecks will crowd the tracks more than necessary.

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