Previously on Rhythm + Flow, Dj Khaled, Latto, and Ludacris serve as judges, sharing the screen with young, aspiring musicians. This season has a weird structure where auditions and challenges take up random lengths of episodes that weird me out. I give this season a pass because of the new talent it’s exposing me to. Most of this new talent are female rappers, better than their male counterparts. These aspiring rappers are in want of moulding from a mysterious Detroit based rapper who is good at battling.

Ok, that famous musician is Eminem, generous enough to go to the sidelines as these aspiring rappers battle it out. The battles take up an episode and a third which again, what the fuck, but I’ll tolerate it. I just watched Season 1’s battle episode three days prior and I don’t remember rappers choking like they do here. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing because most of these aspiring rappers know how to pick themselves back up. Props to Latto, problematique kween, for being the only judge here to fulfil her contract, and I have theories about that.

Rhythm + Flow‘s battle rap episode and a third is basically the Drag Race franchise’s reading challenge but mostly straight. It confirms my prejudices against male rappers like DreTL and K’Alley. While battling, they resorted to homophobia, which, I’m more mad about its laziness even after Eminem did all that. This is why I like female rappers more like Jaxs with an X and LG, friendly until the beat drops. They mess up, but if they spit more bars after the beat, will Eminem and Latto think that their extra effort counts? The battle episode makes the show whittle down fourteen rappers to down to seven – a literal odd number.

To confirm my prejudices, five of the seven are women, and I didn’t notice this until, like, episode seven. The next challenge is when the rappers get to further explain their identities as artists and what sets them apart. They do this through a single that they record, make art for, and perform in front of a live audience. One of the contestants makes a pun out of her rap name but it impresses the judges, especially DJ Khaled. Another rapper represents the part of America where she’s from, which impresses the judges as much as the crowd.

The single challenge feels too early, like what are these rappers going to do for the next three challenges? But this challenge makes sense in that we know how these rappers choose to perform, choosing athleticism or otherwise. If their risks work in their favour, the judges, and special guest judge Glorilla give them props for it. As an aside, Glorilla is a bigger star than Latto but Latto, a reality alum amongst other things, is TV ready in ways that maybe Glorilla may be in a year or two. It also speaks to Latto’s character that she’s willing to share the panel with Glo, unlike some people.

Also, an important aspect of this challenge is how these aspiring rappers talk to veteran producers about their choices. After performing her song, the judges speculate that she didn’t give the producer enough input. Another contestant of the show, a male one, does the exact opposite of her. I can’t directly talk about who this top seven guy is except that he’s one of the two guys. He also reminds me of Season 1’s top two contestants – he has Flawless Real Talk’s stubbornness but D Smoke’s wisdom. Will that combination of real qualities give him a future in this series or will he be kicked off?

Find out by watching episodes 5 to 7 of Season 2 of Rhythm + Flow on Netflix.