EgoTrip's The (White) Rapper Show on VH1

Television Review: Ego Trip's (White) Rapper Show

If you're familiar with Ego Trip, you know that their a brand who makes money by tackling cultural issues in an entertaining and informative way, leaving no one unoffended- or enlightened, for that matter. Just look at their books, Big Book of Hip Hop and Big Book of Racism, and their previous VH1 production, Race O' Rama. But now they've combined hip hop and cultural issues into one reality contest series called The (White) Rapper Show.

From a show standpoint, it starts off armed to the teeth in production and set up to keep this from becoming a cheap and cheesy contest. For one, it's hosted by MC Serch, one of the 3 members of 3^rd Bass, a white rap group from the 80s and 90s that had a lot of street cred, skills, and no Pat Boone-type of rip off of hip hop culture a la Vanilla Ice. In fact, they often went to war against Vanilla Ice in lyrics and media because, to 3^rd Bass, he gave white rappers a really bad name.

Also, the same people who produced America's Next Top Model are producing The (White) Rapper Show. If that production team can keep us interested in model drama without presenting them all as stereotypical anorexic airheads, then they should be able to handle this show with caution as well and try to keep out the inherent controversy.

So far, the groups are divided into two teams that live in a house (called "the white house) in teh South Bronx. At the end of the day, the team who loses one of the daily competitions faces an elimination round where MC Serch picks the loser to be eliminated. When the show ends, the final contestant stands to collect $100,000.