Basic Trope: A (usually, though not always, white) character attempts to rap, and fails miserably.
- Straight: Bob, who is white, is at a club, featuring an open-mic night. He decides to try rapping. The only response he gets is the sound of Chirping Crickets.
- Exaggerated: Bob is booed off the stage, bombarded with trash, and chased by an angry mob wielding Torches and Pitchforks.
- Downplayed:
- Bob does okay, but is harshly critiqued by a critic.
- One or two people clap after the song.
- Justified:
- Bob was drunk and/or high, which negatively affected his performance.
- Bob invoked N-Word Privileges he didn't actually have.
- Bob never practices and was ill-prepared.
- If freestyle rapping is involved (and it usually is), Bob isn't really good at thinking up witty lines on the spot.
- Bob suffers from a severe case of Stage Fright that negatively impacts his performance.
- Bob is from Suburbia, or even a rural area, but tries to rap about life in the inner city, something he really can't relate to, and the audience can tell he doesn't have that firsthand knowledge.
- Bob skipped all the traditional steps of learning how to rap, and as a result, he doesn't understand any of the technical aspects and has all the hallmarks of a rapper who doesn't understand rapping, namely a lack of flow, poor word choices and gratuitous profanity, rhyming words with themselves, overly simplistic rhyme schemes, and repetitive lyrical structures.
- Inverted:
- Bob actually wins the open-mic contest or rap battle; he's just that good.
- Kareem, who is black, attempts to rap and has an Epic Fail instead.
- Bob is terrible at singing Italian operas despite having been to Italy many times and having Italian heritage.
- Subverted: Bob does OK at open-mic nights and rap battles underground.
- Double Subverted: But when he attempts to sign with a record label, the producers think he's terrible.
- Parodied:
- Bob makes this trope name literal by pissing his pants while rapping.
- Bob's rapping is so bad that it hurts or kills people.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Some white characters can rap, some can't. Some black characters can rap, some can't.
- Bob's rapping ability varies Depending on the Writer.
- Bob starts out shaky, then he figures out that he's rapping poorly and comes up with a better rap. But then he messes up again a minute later.
- Bob does OK at open-mic nights and rap battles underground, but when he tries to sign with a record label, he's rejected. But a sympathetic person in the company offers to set him up with a mentor — whose good advice he doesn't incorporate in its entirety.
- Averted: Bob keeps off the stage.
- Enforced: Bob's participation in the rap battle is a crucial plot point, but the producers failed to Cast the Expert.
- Lampshaded:Alice: Bob, you cannot rap.Bob: You knew that long before you roped me into this, Alice.
- Invoked: After a few too many drinks, Bob gets up on stage, with no idea what he's doing.
- Exploited: A "World's Worst Rapper" contest is held.
- Defied:
- Bob learns how to rap so he can perform passably on open-mic night.
- Even though he's drunk, Bob manages to rap well, and gets a standing ovation.
- Discussed: "My little sister's shitbag babydaddy is using his rap 'career' as an excuse for why he refuses to get a real job. Bro, the only fame you'll ever get is on Catatonicyouths — those Soundcloud spins are from people looking for a laugh, not people who actually like your shit."
- Conversed: "My roommate did what every washed-up metalcore and deathcore dude who didn't turn into some twee-ass indie folk guy does and started a rap project, and however bad you think it is, it's worse." "How bad are we talking?" "Look up Yung Troper on Soundcloud. That's all I'll say." [After a Beat] "Oh shit, THAT'S your roommate!? Dude, I honestly thought that was a parody, it was so bad. Corniest lines I've ever heard with absolutely no flow — how deep in the depths of self-delusion do you have to be to think that people actually want to hear that shit?"
- Implied:
- People are seen walking out of the venue en masse within the first few minutes of Bob's performance.
- Bob's Soundcloud and YouTube pages have few views and have comments disabled, and the only time he ever received an uptick in streams or views was when one of his videos made it onto Catatonicyouths.
- Played for Laughs: Bob's rapping is seen in-universe as narmy and/or So Bad, It's Good.
- Played for Drama: Bob is known only for his terrible showing at a single rap battle, and through the power of the grapevine, he's ostracized from society.
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