![]() Netflix’s staggered release schedule for Rhythm + Flow is effectively building up my suspense over whether the show ultimately will go for the most exciting rap artists or the most telegenic ones. Meanwhile, in the past year, the songwriting competition show Songland-which I hoped might bring to that craft the rigor and pleasure that Project Runway at its best did to fashion designing-ended up being dull because the writing process itself felt so secondary to on-screen relationships and “moments.” īy this formal logic, we already have the ultimate music reality show in the form of The Masked Singer, the recent hit adaptation of a preposterous South Korean program in which panelists play a What’s My Line?–gone-Murakami-or-Koons guessing game, with the likes of Donny Osmond and Joey Fatone crooning while being disguised as masquerade rabbits and unicorns. He almost might as well have been shoving hot tubes into glory holes to shape decanters over on Netflix’s improbably entertaining glass blowing competition, Blown Away. After bingeing the first eight parts of Rhythm + Flow, I find myself more readily recalling Cardi B repeatedly saying that the longest-lasting white contestant looks like “Bill Gates’ son” than anything about that rapper’s rhythm or his flow. On a deeper, more Marshall McLuhan–esque level, the vexation of music reality shows is that they are reality shows first, music showcases an enticing but distant second. This leaves them to producers and managers who probably resent being saddled with artists they didn’t choose, or who want to force them into generic pop-star molds. star is expected to have model looks as well, Susan Boyle being the signal but far from lone example.) As Levine himself has complained, most crown-claiming contestants on Idol and The Voice end up foundering under the record label deals that are part of the prize. The exception seems to be for country singers such as RaeLynn, who move on to the close-knit community of Nashville, Tennessee-much the way, I think, that the hothouse environment of London can still work for TV-talent winners in Britain. Which raises the greater mystery of how Rhythm + Flow will acquit itself of the question that’s been haunting the musical reality genre for years: Can these shows still discover stars, the way American Idol managed at least fitfully in its early years by introducing Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Chris Daughtry? Those days seem long ago, and while the rotating hot seats on The Voice have reeled in high ratings for more than 16 seasons now, it’s mostly been to the benefit of the careers of judges such as Blake Shelton and Adam Levine, rather than many of the competitors. They range from the gruffly woke D Smoke, the competition’s best pure songwriter, to Denver’s besuited and bespectacled Old Man Saxon (who cites old-timey influences like swing musician Cab Calloway and blues comedian Rudy Ray Moore), to Rhode Island’s baby-faced but hard-nosed Puerto Rican rhymer Flawless Real Talk, to Chicago’s raggedy, slam poetry–honed Big Mouf’ Bo, who gets grief from the judges for her short temper. ![]() But there’s no denying the array of personalities and talents. There are arguably many more busts than bangers among the total bars doled out by the wannabes whom the show recruits via extensive audition sessions in its first four outings-at clubs in L.A., Atlanta, Chicago, and NYC-as well as in the full episode “challenges” (cyphers, rap battles, a mini music video festival, and a competition involving building a track atop a classic sample) I’ve screened so far. Solely as a suite of character studies and social documentaries in miniature, then, Rhythm + Flow repays its viewing time. Send me updates about Slate special offers. (The first four episodes premiered last week, three more were released today, and the last three are set for next Wednesday reviewers could preview all but the final two.) What sets Rhythm + Flow apart from two decades of American musical TV contests is not only that it’s about hip-hop- tried before, but never with mass success-but that its berth on a streaming service lets it toss away the “family friendly” tone of broadcast TV sing-offs. ![]() Austin called a performative utterance-a sentence that enacts its own reality simply by being stated, like a wedding vow. It’s almost what linguistic philosopher J. ![]() “This ain’t The Voice, motherfuckers,” guest judge Snoop Dogg proclaims early in the run of Netflix’s new rap-competition show, Rhythm + Flow. The Idol’s Twist Ending Was Clumsily Hidden in Plain Sight All Along.This Novelist Is a Mark Twain for the 21st Century There’s a Big Disappointment on Taylor Swift’s Latest Album Rerecording Netflix’s Hit Take Care of Maya Scratches the Surface of a Huge Problem
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