BET Serves Ottawa Rapper a Raw Deal

For a young Canadian Rapper having a chance to be featured on Black Entertainment Television’s “Freestyle Friday” is a dream come true, but for Ottawa’s Corey Charron his successful appearance on the popular American  network was the beginning of an ordeal he never expected.

In March Charron won the “Freestyle Friday” competition going head to head with other hopefuls in an improvisational form  of rap. As he puts it he was “contractual” awarded $5000 dollars and an opportunity to appear on the annual BET awards “cypher”, along side some of the genres biggest names and fellow up and comers.

When the network failed to contact him leading up to the show, Charron made inquiries and was told that the “cypher” segment had been scaled back and that there was no longer room for the “Freestyle Friday” champion.

Why? Well as Charron told CBC in a recent interview he thinks his omission was because he didn’t fit the network’s image.

“I’m a white Canadian [with] kind of like a baby-faced nerdy look to me and I just really don’t think they thought I was going to win the competition,”

Whether it was a race issue or not the fact remains that a Canadian kid with a bright future was robbed of the opportunity of a lifetime.  Charron is a mainstay in one of the largest underground music scenes in the world, Toronto’s own “King Of The Dot” Freestyle battle league  and wasn’t about to take the shunning lying down.

Recently he filmed and released his own version of a cypher verse in the same classic black and white style as the awards show segment in which he takes some not so subtle shots at some of the industries biggest names.  The video has garnered some huge buzz within the rap community and beyond since its release over the weekend gaining Charron the support of many who feel BET has done him wrong.

The lesson, while as Canadians we have a reputation the world over for our kindness and generosity we are also a fiercely proud people who will stand up and kick our way through doors that are slammed in our face.

Watch Charrons door breaking here: