Review: 'The Rap Game'

Aside from whether or not you're a fan of rap music, it's clear the genre does have a big problem at its core. At a time of increasing economic inequality, a time when "Black Lives Matter" movements are staging protests across the country, mainstream rap music is still stuck in the club.

Yes, there is some socially conscious rap music out there, but the most commercial rappers have adopted some variation of the same tired persona. They're badass, they like to party, they like that booty and they're all about "respect."

The emphasis on that part of the rap music universe has tended to make it harder to launch new teen rap artists. It's one thing to hear a twentysomething talking about he's going to get what's his tonight. It's an entirely different thing to hear a 15-year-old throw out those lines.

That cultural dissonance is just one of the problems that plagues the new musical competition series THE RAP GAME, which is inexplicably airing Fridays on Lifetime.

The series takes five emerging young hip hop artists, ages 12-to-16 years old and teams them up with veteran producer/writer and label owner Jermaine Dupri. His goal is to find the best rapper and most commercial talent among the group. And when the season is over, he's going to sign the winner to a deal with his label So So Def Recordings.

Now Dupri has a solid track record breaking teen rap and hip-hop artists, including Kriss Kross, Da Brat and Lil Bow Wow. But that success was nearly 15 years ago and that's a couple of generations in the music industry. So going into this process, there are some real questions about whether Dupri still knows the teen rap audience well enough to make another superstar. There are times when Dupri's advice comes across about as relevant as you'd hear on a show centering around pop music that has a mentor who's best known for breaking "Savage Garden" and "Ace Of Base."

The five teens are all accompanied to Dupri's based in Atlanta by family members, each of whom is some variation of their manager. In most cases, the entire family has upended their lives to make their teen a rap star and by the end of the first episode, you can see those unhealthy family dynamics bubbling to the surface.

Another issue is that all five of the budding rappers are 15 going on 25. Yes, they've found some success on YouTube and Instagram - although given the way that is hyped in the show, you wonder if any of them know the distinction between being popular on social media and having fans who will pay to buy your tracks. But they've all also developed this accelerated grown-up persona. They're rapping about going out with their boys (or girls), owning lots of things and being the toughest person in the room. One of the younger rappers did a YouTube video at ten that showed him standing in the middle of a bunch of high-end sports cars, whacking on some woman's generously large ass. The fact that no one saw that image was a problem speaks volumes about his family's decision to put his "career" ahead of common sense.

The first episode of the show offers up a couple of challenges for the rappers, including a quick performance for Dupri and his staff as well as an "internship" that was supposed to give them a bit of humility. Then at the end of the episode, Dupri ranks the five on his weekly "Hit List."

I could write a couple of thousand words about everything that is wrong with THE RAP GAME, but truthfully, I also realize I'm not the audience for this show. I don't wish any of the participants ill, but I found the show to be fairly loathsome and sad. Although now that I think about it, doesn't that describe a lot of the music industry in 2016?