This week, in the world of our favorite hip-hop sitcom, ‘This Is Hot 97,’ Angie Martinez goes car shopping at Funkmaster Flex’s warehouse full of Big Blocks and Chevelles, Ebro is on the hush about a relationship and Cipha Sounds stalks Ricki Lake, sort of.
As usual, the Hot 97 misadventures begin at a daily staff meeting, also known as, “Where the hell is Flex?” This particular morning, Angie shares with the group that she’s car shopping in addition to experiencing the annoyances that come with it, like when a car dealer realizes she’s from Hot 97 and offers less than appropriate wheels. “I don’t want a purple Range Rover with spinners!” yells the Voice of New York.
Funkmaster Flex over-enthusiastically offers to help Angie on her car hunt because he’s “the car king.” Upon the duo’s arrival to Flex’s garage space full of Chevelles, it appears his digs are comparable to ‘Fast & Furious’ movie set. Any moment and you can peep Michelle Rodriguez working on one of the cars or Vin Diesel doing doughnuts in the parking lot.
Flex gets carried away peddling these speed demons on Angie leaving her to think he’s nuts. “Flex is clearly a crazy person and on his own planet and thinks that I should be in some sort of old-school Dr. Dre video,” she says.
It doesn’t stop there. Flex gets in the driver’s seat of one of his classic cars to show Angie what the machine can do. Flex does a doughnut (surprisingly not the edible kind) and spins round and round, burning rubber. Poor Angie, all she wants is something reliable to drop her son off at basketball practice, but no, Flex wants to pretend she’s Jordana Brewster.
It turns out that Flex really is a knight in shining armor. The DJ comes through in the end, very much like he did last week for Macklemore’s 1st birthday party, and got a car dealer to show up with a black mini SUV. It’s what Angie was searching for. In celebration, Angie asks Flex to drive one of the Chevelles for some giggles and they ride off into the sunset together, but not before Angie attempts a doughnut.
We also find out that old man Ebro has a lady in his life. Who is she? We don’t know. But what we do know is that she wears perfume and glitter. How do we know that? Well, at the staff meeting, Karlie Hustle calls him out on the glitter that appears on his beard. Ebro is like any red-blooded American man — the less pressure in relationship, the better. Therefore, he doesn’t want anyone to know he’s “booed” up. Apparently, prematurely announcing a relationship in the radio business has resulted in splits.
Later on in the day, we find out Ebro’s new girl also likes lotion and faux-fur infinity scarves. Laura Stylez and Karlie find a suspect unlabeled bag with what appears to be gifts. Ebro squashes the speculation — or so he thinks — by donning the piece of faux-fur himself, all day long. It doesn’t really look that strange, but according to Karlie, he’s being strangled by a giant dread.
Outside of the studio, one of his co-workers takes an Instagram photo of Ebro rocking the infinity scarf and it goes viral. Still, even Drewski clowns the boss when Ebro declares the look is not “street.” “I’m on these streets and that is not in the street,” he shares. The only thing that makes sense to Drewski is either Ebro lost a bet or he “must be hanging out with Pharrell and them.”
Ebro finally caves in and spills the beans to Laura and Karlie after they almost make him wear lip gloss they found in his office. Basically it won’t stay a secret for long since even Laura confesses she’s probably going to tell everyone. The only thing public at this point is Ebro wearing the infinity scarf thanks to the Instagram post earlier. When he walks out of his office later that day, he finds Jadakiss and The Lox outside all wearing infinity scarves playing craps. Obviously Ebro is the tastemaker to look out for.
Last week, Cipha’s practical joke of letting Rosenberg think he was going to be killed by Maino has Rosenberg seeking revenge on Cipha. It turns out that Cipha has a thing for the ’90′s talk show host Ricki Lake — and her legs. Rosenberg has been seeing this girl at the coffee cart — “Ricki Fake” — outside the studio offices donning a red coat that looks very much like the ex-talk show host. Cipha gets excited.
A couple of hours later, Rosenberg asks Cipha, “Who do you most want to sleep with in the world?” The answer is the real kicker: “Nancy Sinatra. She came from Frank. So that’s the closest I’ll ever get to Frank.” That’s not why Rosenberg was asking though. He’s setting Cipha up to embarrass himself. So Rosenberg proceeds to push Cipha to step up and be heroic and do everything in his power to run into Ricki Lake.
The job is done. In order to ensure he sees “Ricki Fake,” Cipha asks everyone and their mother if they want coffee like some college intern. Thirty coffee runs later, Cipha is amped and has the shakes like he’s in the Betty Ford Clinic. Finally, Rosenberg gives Cipha the 411 that Ricki is downstairs at the coffee cart at that very moment. Cipha runs (or some variation of running) downstairs. As soon as he gets to the line, he taps Ricki’s shoulder, and realizes it’s not the real Ricki. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were someone I was allowed to have sex with,” Cipha states. Smooth. He still tries to pick her up but she listens to NPR, so it doesn’t work out.
Watch next week when Summer Jam plans are revealed, a poker game featuring Stevie J and Joseline from ‘Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta’ goes down and Miss Info ends up on a blind date with Action Bronson. Don’t miss out!