Part of me wonders why someone who makes his living in the macho in-your-face world of rap and hip-hop but is, in reality, reticent, domesticated, graceful or more than a little squeamish would risk altering perceptions not only of themselves but their entire genre by exposing themselves on reality TV shows like Celebrity Big Brother, Strictly and I’m A Celebrity. The likes of Coolio and Public Enemy’s Flavor Flav clearly saw things differently, so I’m obviously missing something.
Now, current ‘I’m A Celebrity’ contestant Tinchy Stryder has been forced by viewers to take part in one of the most gruesome ‘Bushtucker Trials’ of the latest series so far.
The 28-year-old rapper was voted to take on the third challenge by the public on Monday night, but had no clue how hard his task would turn out to be.
After arriving to meet Ant and Dec, Tinchy – whose real name is Kwasi Danquah – was told that he would face the Chamber of Horrors. When asked if he was OK with the impending trial, far from even disingenuously adopting his ghetto persona, he told the presenter pairing: “No, I’m worried, I don’t know what’s going to happen (…) I don’t know what’s going to pop out at me, I’m really scared of rats, I don’t want no rats.”
Be careful what you (don’t) wish for is my advice. Rats might have been preferable to a series of equally aggressive critters hidden behind several doors. In the first chamber, he found a floor filled with nippy mud crabs and had to root through the sand in a bid to find the hidden stars. He then faced the stench of a room filled with rotting meat, made all the worse by the accompanying flies. Then he came across a large monitor lizard, which wildly thrashed its powerful tail at him. Finally beginning to doubt his popularity with the viewers who voted for him at home, a terrified Tinchy wondered aloud: “Why did the public want to do this to me, what did I do?”
The British viewing public are an evil bunch. As has been proved time and again, we love nothing more than to see a celebrity suffer, especially ones we are yet to be convinced are anything of the sort . . . just ask poor Helen Flanagan. Our Tinchy better start waving those fingers around in time-honoured rapper style to remind those critters . . . and himself . . . who he is meant to be or it cannot be too long before he meets his rodent nemeses face to face.
