Celebrity Rap Superstar › Ep. 106

After a brief recap of last week's action -- you know, when we found out that Countess Vaughan was unfortunately pulling out of the competition due to illness and was therefore the eliminated contestant -- Kevin Hart says, "What are you lookin' at, America?" He knows it's him and he graciously welcomes us to another episode of Celebrity Rap Superstar. This is the sixth episode of the season, and there are only eight in total, so let's face it, we're getting down to business now.

As usual, there's no time for fooling around, and we get right down to business, finding out which half of our remaining four contestants are sitting at the bottom of the barrel and possibly facing elimination tonight. Kevin introduces all of them and explains that the top two will be safe and the bottom two will, well, not.

It's not actress/singer Shar Jackson, a judges' favorite who, Kevin reveals ranks first in the voting! After two weeks on top, Playmate Kendra Wilkinson, slips a bit, falling to number two in the rankings.

That leaves rocker Sebastian Bach and blogarazzi Perez Hilton as the two contestants who will fret through the next hour as they await the news of who will be heading home. The other one? Well, they'll get another shot at becoming a Celebrity Rap Superstar.

With that unpleasantness behind us, Kevin Hart explains tonight's theme: Speed rapping. "To make this competition official, we brought in the fastest rapper alive," Kevin says, "Twista!" Wearing an orange leather jacket and a whole lot of bling, including an iced iPod, the speedy rhymer is in the house as an honorary guest judge.

And it's fitting that the first contestant will be Shar Jackson who will take on Twista's "Overnight Celebrity." In the rewind of her week of preparation, Shar admits to feeling a lot of pressure. I don't think anyone else is doing a Twista song," she says sarcastically, "just me!"

Mentor MC Lyte agrees, knowing just how hard it is to spit rhymes at light speed. "I don't think Twista breathes at all," she tells Shar before advising that she exercise while rehearsing the lyrics to build up her stamina and breathing technique. Shar jogs laps to get into the groove and it pays off in her performance. Throughout, the judges are obviously into it, with heads nodding to the lyrics and Da Brat up out of her seat.

Shar enunciates every line, not missing a beat, proving once again that she is a talented rapper in the making. At the end, all of the judges jump to their feet and applaud her performance, making the confident MC drop her hip-hop game face and show her giggling, excited self.

"Shar, I ain't gonna lie to you," Kevin Hart says as he takes the stage to open the floor to the judges. "I'm impressed!" As it's his song, Twista goes first, giving Shar due props. "Man, she snap, man ... You did your thing you got me excited!"

"I'm so happy that she's getting her credit with the votes, so thank you, America," Da Brat says, before summing up the performance by saying, "You murdered it!" Big Boy agrees, saying that the viewers "voted you number one because you are," while D.M.C. sings her praises, especially that he was able to hear every word.

After the first break, it's Kendra Wilkinson's turn to swing for the fences with her cover of Ludacris' strip club anthem "What's Your Fantasy." In the clips of her rehearsal week, Kendra admits that despite her fan favorite status, she knows that, "Shar is the one to beat."

Looking over the lyrics to "What's Your Fantasy," Kendra notes that "It's got a lot of sexual stuff ... I can really get into that!" Her mentor, Too $hort, lays it on the line, saying, "The last few episodes, she's had Perez and me to help her out" when she dropped lines or lost the beat. "She's back on her own, he adds. "If you mess up here you could be outta here."

For her part, Kendra is confident. "I worked my ass off on this rap," she says straight into the camera. "So hopefully it pays off!"

Dressed in a tarty tartan mini-skirt and wearing her hair like a little girl in pigtails, Kendra steps onto the stage with her mic strapped to a large lollipop. She hits the rhyme a little shakily and eventually finds the beat, running through Luda's rhymes from memory with obvious concentration, but still manages to drop a line here and there. At the end, she relies on her sexiness, laying a slow lick on the lollipop as her "boyfriend," Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, smiles and applauds in the audience.

Called on to answer first, D.M.C. stammers, before finally saying, "It was good ... What I like, when you messed up, you kept goin'." Twista says, "I got a little scared in the beginning, but she came right back in," while Da Brat ekes out, "She fell off of her lyrics, but she looked cute," and shouted out to Hef ... again. "To tell you the truth, I thought you were going to do bad," Big Boy admitted. "You slipped, but you didn't fall and you recovered pretty well."

After a break, it's Sebastian Bach's turn to whip out a lightning-fast rhyme, OutKast's "B.O.B.," and we take a look at how he prepared for tonight. Acknowledging that Bach's trouble on stage is getting distracted by the audience, which, as a rock band frontman, causes him to dig in deeper and go for the rock band growl. Mentor Kurupt aims to break him of that habit by providing an audience for his rehearsal.

"I brought my wife, Gail, in because I wanted him to feel the pressure," Kurupt says of his practice strategy. "Kurupt wants me to ignore distractions," Bach acknowledges. So much so that his mentor traveled east during the week to the former Skid Row singer's New Jersey home to keep him focused on his rhyme. "If Sebastian loses focus, it just might drop him," he says. "It's time to step up."

Ripping through the rhymes with his trademark growl, Bach is right on the beat and doesn't miss a word. And despite how physically taxing spitting these rapid fire lines is, Sebastian still has enough stamina to jog a circle around the stage to slap hands with audience members as he croons the song's slower chorus. His performance draws instant applause and devil horns from the judges.

Da Brat complains that she couldn't quite hear the lyrics. It might have been "because it's so loud in here," she says, but "I have nothing bad to say." Big Boy stuck up for Bach, saying, "I could hear what he was saying. He did his thing, trust me!"

"He's always consistent," D.M.C. says, "I love the way he makes the song his," while Twista gave him the highest praise, saying, "I felt like he aced it!" And that was a phrase that made Kurupt proud.

Finally, it's Perez Hilton's turn to whip out a quick-paced rhyme, and his assignment is a run through Big Pun's "Still Not a Player."

"I'm a better rapper than Kendra," Perez says in the review of his week of prep for tonight's performance. "The audience is probably not voting for me because I come across like an ass---- sometimes." Perez's mentor, Tone Loc seems daunted by the task ahead of his protégé. "There's a lot of words up in there," he says with a sigh.

"I love Tone, but Tone doesn't do things fast," Perez says. "That type of style is difficult to a person like me," Tone says in agreement, and notes that Perez's "biggest trouble is memorizing" the song. "Tone told me to practice a lot for this week," Perez says with a laugh. "That's a given!"

"This song scares me," Perez admits. "I'm afraid of this song, he says before admitting that he knows he "has to nail this performance."

Hilton rides out onto the stage perched on a miniature Cadillac Escalade driven by a one of the show's sexy dancers. He's clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, while the dancers are costumed as guards. He delivers Big Pun's lines with authority, if not grace, but intones with a sense of confidence. He's right, he is a better rapper than Kendra, and he proves it here, but Kendra's not fighting to stay on the show for another week, and as the performance ends, Perez looks a little fearful of what might happen,.

After Kevin Hart cracks a joke about Perez nearly crushing the car, Big Boy says, "I don't think America gives you a fair shake," praising Hilton's performances week in and week out, before saying, "You made the decision harder."

"He's always prepared, his presentation is always tight," D.M.C. praises. "Point blank: you have a good show every time." Da Brat says he "did good" and lauds him for how well he prepares for every performance before telling him not to get comfortable in his prison duds, because "you wouldn't last in there." The final word on his performance goes to the king of the quick rhyme, Twista, who lays it out: "The rap wasn't as fast as everybody else, but you definitely did it."

Back from commercial, "it's drama time" and the tension is obviously high as we await the judges' decision as to who is staying and who is headed home. As usual, it's Da Brat who will speak for the crew and after a dramatic pause, she announces, "I gotta say that the judges and myself came to the conclusion of ... Sebastian Bach!"

After a little celebratory jumping and hugging, Bach shakes the judges hands as Kevin yells at him to get off the stage so that he can talk to Perez and Tone before they go. "Every week you worked hard and you brought it," Kevin says.

"Of all the performers, I'm the only one who didn't mess up once!" Perez says. "But I had fun." Kevin sums it up well, saying, "There's no question Perez is one of the celebs who made this battle so much fun to watch."

And, amidst plugs for his web site and his VH1 show, Perez confesses, "I got to try something completely new and different for me -- and I did it my way.

"Another one bites the dust!" Kevin says before reminds viewers to cast votes for their favorites before reviewing the performances turned out tonight by Shar, Kendra and Sebastian along with their voting numbers and text-in information. Voting is open for 24 hours, ending at 11 p.m. ET on Friday, Oct. 5.

But, along with helping to decide who will go on to become the Celebrity Rap Superstar, viewers of the show also have another task at hand. Fans will also have a say in what song the final three contestants will perform on next week's show. Via a poll on celebrityrapsuperstar.mtv.com, viewers will select what old school rap song each contestant will perform.

Before the credits roll, Kevin bids farewell with a gibberishtic shout out and introduces Twista's show closing performance of "Give It Up" (which drops two lyrical Red Hot Chili Peppers references in the first verse) and "Whip Game Proper."

And that's it ... Go vote!