My neck, My back....Nah Man kick rocks

Khia + VH1 = Next Female Rap Superstar???!!!
written by K.T.

When the world of hip-hop merges with the world of pop culture, no one can say with confidence that they know what to expect. Sometimes you come out with “YO! MTV Raps” or “Hip Hop Honors” and other times you get “The (White) Rapper Show.” Being the ever-noble purveyors of quality entertainment they are, VH1 has decided to reprise its role as gatekeeper of new talent into the rap game with its new show “Miss Rap Supreme,” hosted once more by MC Serch and featuring newbie YoYo. For those of you who didn’t catch the show’s premiere two nights ago, 10 female emcees are forced to live under one roof while performing tasks that measure not only their rhyme skills, but their mental toughness. It’s format – much the same as “Rapper” – is designed at once to enamor you with these women while at the same time make you lower head at their antics.

The show, at its core, is a very good idea. It wasn’t too long ago PTM brought up the lack of a decent female MC in the hip-hop game and a show like this is exactly what will shine some light on the ladies that are really doing it for real. However, the glaring flaw with this show is its inclusion of the original “Thug Miss,” Khia herself, ladies and gentlemen.

From the time that she sets foot in the house, she makes no secret of her “successes” as an artist repeatedly letting those in the house, behind the cameras and in front of the TV aware of the 800,000 units that “Misses” pushed worldwide, largely due to the buzz that “My Neck, My Back” generated. She conveniently failed to mention that her next single, “You My Girl” never made the charts and her second album – 2006’s "Gangstress" moved 10,000 copies worldwide. But who cares about that? She is a certified gold rapper; she is light years ahead of the rest of these women talent-wise, right?

Wrong. WRONG.

The unfortunate thing about Khia being on this show is that her ego, however inflated and misguided, will inevitably overshadow some of the more promising talents on this show. A prime example of this is the show’s elimination, for which the losing team’s competitors must write 16 bars to convince Serch and YoYo of their worth. Khia, for some reason, decided that this is an opportunity to construct the longest hook in rap history; an incoherent, almost inaudible mishmash of lyrics ending with her spelling out and repeating the phrase “respect me.”

Wow.

Serch decided to keep her over a promising German rapper named Lionezz and that is precisely my point. Khia had the opportunity to make a career and she didn’t fully capitalize on that. Now for her to show up in this house with women who really have a chance to get put on and act as if she is just coming off of some Kanye-like Grammy family status is preposterous. I won’t knock her as a person, but as an artist, she’s got nothing left. Her antics in the first show brought light away from talents like Jersey Peach Chiba and Byata. Those sistas can spit for real and I hope they do get some exposure through this show.

Hopefully, Khia won’t be anywhere near them when it happens.