Bubba Sparxxx

Two ways to look at this one: After a bidding war, the music industry has found its next Eminem, another white rapper it can market to the CD-buying masses of suburban kids looking for their own “ghetto voice” (a laughable concept, but why should record execs care? Rebellion is their business). Or one can acknowledge new talent and flavor, the context of Bubba Sparxx, an ex-high-school-football-star-turned rapper from Georgia who fits nicely within the funkified world of Southern rap led by groups like OutKast.

Anyone from the South knows the slow-Kool flow that Sparxxx espouses, the way he slings his slang across rural topics and small-town life ("y’all don’t know me a-tall, I say the same thing but slowa than y’all"). Mix that with upscale, slick city production from Timbaland (i.e., fast blips and beats), and you have a marketing masterpiece with a couple of choice cuts, an album—though certainly headed for the flip-top trash lid of history—that sparkles as brightly as any dung on the dead plain of MTV children seeking identities.

PREDICTIONS: 1). Look for fools bumping New South anthems like "Bubba Talk" and "Ugly" down The Esplanade for everyone in a two-mile radius to enjoy. 2). Bubba Sparxxx = soundtrack to your local high school football team, Anywhitetown, USA.