Fly Away

So tonight's the night John Brown wins $100,000, right? I was talking to white rapper (and WRS expert) Jamie Radford the other day and he said he thought it might be Shamrock, but I'd say it's John Brown who's this series' break out star either way. Might as well give him the money.

Last week, the white rappers took a pilgrimage to the white rapper mecca that is Detroit and Jus Rhyme ended up getting sent home. This week, it's back to the White House, in the South Bronx. The episode begins with them getting their buzz cuts tightened up by some local barber.

This week's competition involves performing at the legendary Rucker Park. That noted expert on hip-hop performing Fat Joe stops by to give the white rappers some last minute pointers. According to Fat Joe it's important to give a good performance rather than a bad performance.

[Commerical Break: I like how the commercial for whatever this Def Jam ICON is uses the beat from Jim Jones' "We Fly High" rather than, say, something from the last Jay album. Presumably Jay didn't sign off on that one. Oh, who are we kidding? Jay-Z doesn't sign off on shit!]

Shamrock doesn't get off to a very good start at the Rucker. At first, his mic doesn't work and then his grill falls out of his mic while he's rapping. John Brown does better with the "everybody say ho" stuff, but he kinda chokes during the actual rappin'. Shamrock I think does better once he manages to pull it all together.

Back at the White House, Serch gives them both CDs of beats by today's hottest producers and tells them to get focused for the final competition. He seems to get on John Brown especially for choking up during performaces. Foreshadowing? MacGuffin?

The next day, two of the white rappers' friends show up all of a sudden. Shamrock's boy looks like a not-so-chubby Bonecrusher, while John Brown's boy is some teh ghey fashion designer. Whoever does the captions makes it a point to question the nature of his and John Brown's relationship.

According to Serch, the final mission will involve traveling to the hottest place evar? Mexico? They pack their shit and leave the White House for the last time. As it turns out, the van takes them to what looks like a hell themed performance hall. As the white rappers arrive, RA the Rugged Man is on stage performing "Chains."

The panel of judges for this final competition includes Dante Ross, Clinton Sparks, who looks mad cracka-ass cracka-ish and Prince Paul.

John Brown goes first and kicks an admittedly pretty decent verse. He still doesn't have much in the way of charisma. Shamrock is probably at a disadvantage since this final competition takes place in NY rather than Atlanta and the beat he rhymes over isn't very southern-sounding, but he does pretty good as well.

Truth be told, John Brown might not have as much of an edge in this final competition though just because so many of the things that have made him endearing (nullus) during the course of this series didn't necessarily have to do with his skills on the mic, especially in front of a live audience.

The second round involves performing an actual song. John Brown's song sounds like a dead prez song about white people's cars - in a bad way. And the sad thing is, he may have actually had the better song of the two. Shamrock's song is just... wrong.

Deliberation: The judges seem to like Shamrock more than John Brown. It looks like Serch is trying to steer them towards John Brown.

And the winner is... Shamrock! Damnit, Jamie Radford was right. Dallas Penn was wrong. Either way, I'd say John Brown is coming out of this thing with more buzz. It'll be interesting to see if either of them has much of a career as a recording artist.