Nowadays its virtually impossible to turn on your television and not see another reality show staring right back at you, doing whatever it takes to make you a sure-fire viewer. It’s everyone’s guilty pleasure, whether they want to admit to it or not. If its not you going text-crazy to insure your favorite singer doesn’t get voted off American Idol, then you’re calling your best friend to rant and rave on how Bret Michaels, Flavor Flav, or Tila Tequila didn’t make the right love choice for themselves.

Whenever you miss an episode, chances are you’re hitting up all the blog spots and message boards on your break, trying to get back in the loop. But to be honest, the best reality shows are probably the ones that have more at stake for the contestants rather than false romances. The programs that involve big pay-days and an opportunity to pursue a lifelong dream are the ones that bring the ‘realness’ out of a person, and every major network has at least two of them in their arsenal.

The VH1 cable channel is happily enjoying the success of one of its reality programs, which focuses on just that. Ego Trip’s Miss Rap Supreme is an extended version of The White Rapper Show’from a few years back, which saw John Brown strongly emphasizing his thoughts on trying to revive the ghetto, and Persia dropping the “N -Word” more times than a redneck at a Klu Klux Klan rally. The synopsis of Miss Rap Supreme is basically the same, but this time around it’s all females instead of a mixture of men and women. There can only be one clear-cut winner taking home the $100,000.00 Grand Prize and a record contract to help further their career. But do you ever wonder who’s behind these shows? Who thinks up all these crazy scenarios that have you saying, “YO!” “Did you see the show where ‘such-and-such’ tried to do ‘whatever’ and they messed it up?” “Man, that sh*t was funny as hell!” Just like your favorite sitcom, competitive reality shows also have people sitting in a room somewhere thinking up the next big thing to spring on you and keep you coming back for more. In the case of Ego Trip, it comes in the form of Sacha Jenkins (pictured above on the far left), Elliot Wilson, Jefferson “Chairman” Mao, Brent Rollins, and Gabriel Alvarez.

The fab five all have an extensive background when it comes to Hip-Hop (being the brains behind the short-lived Ego Trip Magazine back in the mid-to-late 90’s). Since then, all have sunk their hands into other endeavors, most notably Elliot Wilson, former Editor-In-Chief of XXL Magazine. As for Sacha Jenkins, he’s been hard at work lending his journalistic expertise as the editorial director for Mass Appeal Magazine, but that still hasn’t gotten in the way of him nor his four other producers-in-arms to create television shows that will keep your TiVO working overtime.               

How did you first come up with the idea of making shows like ‘The White Rapper Show’ and ‘Miss Rap Supreme’?

Well actually we did a book called Ego Trip’s Book Of Racism back in 2002, and that was just a look at race in America through the eyes of popular culture—and the stuff we grew up watching on television and in Hip-Hop. The book didn’t go platinum, but the people that picked up on it really dug it and it landed in the hands of some people up at Viacom specifically VH1, and it started to get passed around. From ther, an executive was like, “We should produce some shows with these guys.” And that lead to us doing a show called TV’s Illest Minority Moments which was presented by Ego Trip back in 2003. And it was a look at people of color historically on television, and that lead to a three part series called Ego Trip’s Race-O-Rama.

One of its episodes was called ‘Dude Where My Ghetto Pass?’ and it explored the roles white people play, or do not play in urban culture, and whether or not they’re accepted. Another episode was called ‘Blackaphobia’ and it was about everyone’s fear of black people, including black people in fear of themselves. And another episode was called ‘In Race We Lust’ which was about interracial dating, and it’s something a whole lot of us know something about. So that did well enough for VH1’s next question to be like, “What’s next?” And I was joking around when I said, “Hey, we should make a show called ‘The White House’ where we put a whole bunch of kids in the South Bronx, and make them rap.” And that little joke turned into VH1 saying, “Lets do this,” and we did the eight part series of  The White Rapper Show.

And that did well enough for them to say, “What’s next?” White Rapper was cool, but our demographic is largely women.” “If you look at shows like Flavor Of Love, Rock Of Love, etc., a lot of those shows caters towards a female demographic, so what are you guys going to do about that?” And so we came with Miss Rap Supreme because there is avoid in Hip-Hop when it comes to female MC’s doing their thing. They’re getting in trouble, going to jail, or not selling any records, so Miss Rap Supreme was just a natural sort of jump from all the other stuff that really spoke to what the network needed.       

So how is writing books compared to producing reality television shows?

Well the thing is basically with TV, we didn’t have the expertise, so when it came to the technical stuff, that’s where I was, being a student and paying close attention to what was going on. But as a journalist and an editor, and I’ve served as both; you have a real understanding of what stories need to be told, and what people need to get out of the story. So I think we all had a sense of what would be great on television, even though I don’t think anyone really knows, but there are people who’ve been around longer than us—like the people over at VH1. So understanding the whole process took a second.      

So are you the ones that come up with the rules as well? Or does Serch do that?

Well in terms of how stuff plays out, there are five of us. There’s myself, Elliot Wilson, Brent Rollins, Jefferson “Chairman” Mao, and Gabriel Alvarez—and we are the core of what Ego Trip is. So what we do is, we sit down in a room and we think about what it is that we want to communicate with each episode, sort of like a theme. So once we decide on a theme, we just think about crazy things that can happen, like in one of the episodes we aired, Too Short was on there. And some people might consider his rhymes as anti-women, and the female MC’s got to battle Too Short on his own terms. He spit a classic line where he’s talking about b*tches and hoes or whatever he was talking about; and they got to have their own rebuttal. And that’s something you typically don’t see on television or in real life. And that just came from all of us sitting down and having fun, and just thinking about what would be dope, or what would be a cool scenario or what would be a real challenge for these ladies.      

Is everyone on the same page when it comes to the creative side of things?

We don’t always agree. There are plenty of things that I don’t always necessarily agree with, it’s a pretty democratic process, and it’s like being in a rock group. Everyone is playing a different instrument, and people have different strengths. And the best way to go is to exploit all of our strengths, and try to avoid our weaknesses. I think we do that for the most part, but there are plenty of times where I’m like, “Yo, that sh*t is whack, I’m not feeling that.” But if the majority of the team is feeling it, you have to go with it. And the same can be said with a lot of my ideas. I can come up with something, and the more that people are feeling it, the more they’re going to roll with it. But we’re all grown-ups and we’ve been doing this for a long time, so a lot of it is intuitive and you try to be respectful of other people’s ideas. If don’t necessarily like the idea, you try and to hear it out and try to craft it to get it to a point where you feel good about it too. That’s just like anything else, you win some and you lose some. But if anyone of us gets out of line, we’ll just punch each other in the face.

[Laughing] So you’ll take it back to the old school days of playground fights?

 Yeah… Stickball bats son!   

[Laughing] Is it still too early to tell which show has become the bigger hit so far?

Yeah we’re halfway through the season, and we’re getting respectable numbers. We won’t really know until the very end. But what’s always been important to Ego Trip is the cultural impact, And just having the ability to say something that other people aren’t saying—whether it’s through race or through Hip-Hop. But I think ultimately we all know there is avoid in Hip-Hop when it comes to a women’s perspective. And the opportunity to discuss the good, the bad, and the potential to have people get their voice out there is a success to me. I feel like we’ve been very blessed, because we’ve been producing for some years now and more opportunities are popping up right now. Now the idea is just to just be smart about the opportunities and just try to explore them. Just treat the television game like the crack game, and go hand-to-hand with these executives; you know what I’m saying

What exactly is the screening process? What were the qualifications the women had to have to be considered for the show?

We wanted to have a broad range of perspectives for women, different regions, different stories, and different looks. And also personality, we were looking for a lot of personalities. If you think about Hip-Hop in general like mainstream Hip-Hop—maybe I’m just old, or I don’t know sh*t about Hip-Hop, maybe I hate it, or maybe I just want to smack every rapper in the face.

But it’s entertainment, and I think it’s evolved from its art form that came from the ‘hood and now its an industry that speaks to millions and millions of people around the world. The artistry is important, but its also entertainment. And you need to have a big personality to be an entertainer.

If you actually have skills, it’s like, “REALLY!” It’s like getting a Christmas gift in the middle of the summer. But ultimately people want personality, they want performance, and they want energy. And I think today’s musical artist is going to make their bread-n-butter, but for the people that listen to the radio; do they actually care if someone is spitting crazy hot metaphors? Not really, I don’t think so. They want people with personalities, catchy hooks, and catch phrases. And I think a lot of people on the show speak to that, because television is radio to the next level. The show is for people who have a general interest in the music, but also an interest in who these people are. Even for the people who don’t like Hip-Hop, they have enough of an understanding of it. These big named MC’s have to be more than just rappers, and that’s what we’re looking for when it comes to the show.

Was there any particular reason you brought Serch back to also host this show?

Well I think Serch is a great host, because he’s worked all sides of the industry. Obviously we know he was an MC, he knows how to move the crowd, and the dude can still rap his ass off. So he understands what it takes to be an MC, and he understands the business end of it, but also he was a radio personality. He’s done radio for many years, and he still does it. So his ability to interact with people, keep the story going, and engage people is valuable.

He was great with The White Rapper Show and we thought he would do the same with Miss Rap Supreme. And with the addition of Yo-Yo—we shot on the West Coast, and she’s the queen of West Coast Rap. She looks great, she has a great perspective, she’s been through the ups and downs of the industry, and she too has a background in radio. So we felt the combination would be like a mother-father thing. And just dealing with women, it is a man’s world when it comes to this industry, but we felt it was important to have a woman’s touch and a woman’s perspective to balance out Serch. And we feel like it’s turned out pretty good. 
 
When you first started doing these shows did you always think it would be a success?

Ego Trip started in my bedroom back in 1994 with no money. If you would’ve told me back then that I would be producing television shows I would’ve said, “WHATEVER!” It all started with an interest in music, and that interest translated into a magazine. And from that magazine, it translated into us writing for other major magazines and editing those major magazines. And from there it translated into the books, and from there it translated into television. It’s not like I went to school and I said, “I want to be a television producer.” It’s not like I went to school and said, “I want to be a journalist.” So any of this stuff is gravy. I’m not living fat, but I feel good about the ability and opportunity to reach out to people in a creative way. 

Do you ever think about getting back into the magazine game, or are you content with what you’re doing now with television shows?

Well we got out of the magazine back in ’98 and it was tough then. But me personally, I’m one of the publishers of a magazine called Mass Appeal and it’s an independent magazine based on urban culture. And I feel proud to still be a part of a print magazine in a world where print is dwindling. But the reality of the situation is that it’s pretty difficult for all magazines. I think re-launching Ego Trip into print might be weird just because so many printers are going out of business. And for the few printers that are still around, they need to charge more money because business is down. So it’s a difficult proposition, but I still love it and I support it. But with Ego Trip, we’ve been able to develop some things on the web that really speaks for us. And with the web, it just gives us a lot more opportunities to be direct in terms of what we want to say. So we’re happy about those possibilities.