You Must Watch Mayim Bialik Compete In This Rap Battle

Kunal Nayyar and Mayim Bialik Image by YouTube (TBS)

By Jenny Singer December 20, 2017

TBS has developed a celebrity rap battle show called “Drop the Mic,” based on a segment from James Corden’s “Late Late Show” — because taste cannot be allowed to get in the way of civilization enjoying its final, fossil-fueled years of discord and chaos. The show, which bravely creates a platform for white celebrities to perform pre-written raps as if improvising, featured “Big Bang Theory” co-stars Mayim Bialik and Kunal Nayyar this week.

An Indian man and a Jewish woman dipping their toes into African-American culture. Rapping for a national audience! For which sick soul is the genie of the lamp granting these unlikely wishes? Despite our initial skepticism, we should have known never to doubt Mayim Bialik, aka the Hayim Bialik of rap. Her fire rhymes and Nayyar’s sick burns (“So you noticed I’m Indian? How hard core./ Hanging out with you is as fun as Yom Kippur”) turned to ethnic smears, which was both uncomfortable and fascinating to watch. Ultimately, Nayyar and Bialik are both stars, but the bigger bang of the two won out.

Watch them square off here:

Jenny Singer is a writer for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

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