Episodes nine and ten push Rap Icon Pakistan beyond performance and into something more revealing: what happens when contestants have to own their words with nothing else to hide behind?
“Throw your hands in the air if you’s a true player”
– ‘Big Poppa’ by Notorious B.I.G.
Nine episodes in, Rap Icon Pakistan finally does what a rap competition should: take away the beat, the polish, the safety net of a studio and see what’s left. Battle Rap was always going to be the real test because it puts writing, confidence, improvisation, presence, reaction and composure under pressure, none of which can be fixed in post. Episode nine answered that question and Episode ten asked a harder one.
“Melody can’t save you here. Only confidence and clarity will work here,” the judges explain.
Episode nine gets the central idea right. For once, it feels like rap culture at its core first and reality television second. The problem is that the show doesn’t always trust the format to make that point for itself. The judges keep reminding us that there is no melody to lean on, that contestants need thick skin and that they have to respond to whatever comes their way. We get it. The battles make the point far more effectively.
SLA vs King Hassan got things off to a good start because it was difficult to predict where it would go. SLA was outside his natural lane, while King Hassan had the clearer edge as a writer. When the judges couldn’t separate them after the first round and the crowd was split, a second round felt earned rather than manufactured. It was also where the episode found its groove.
SLA dropping the beat entirely was a risk, but it worked. With no track to fall back on, his voice and the crowd’s reaction had to carry the performance. The editors wisely didn’t overcut it either, staying wide and letting the room do some of the work. King Hassan, meanwhile, managed to avoid being boxed into a rap cliché, while SLA’s admission that Hassan out-wrote him came across as self-assured rather than defeated.
Fauji vs Shishu Herry was more of a tonal change of pace. Shishu Herry’s comic instincts were a useful reminder that a battle doesn’t always have to be played at maximum intensity. The multilingual wordplay was hard to follow in full, but you didn’t need to understand every line to get the picture: Fauji combative, Shishu Herry loose and a crowd that was having a good time. The judges gave it to Shishu Herry. It worked, although it didn’t have the same dramatic pull as SLA and King Hassan.
Then came Talon vs XUG, the episode’s standout. This was the battle that came closest to what battle rap is supposed to be. Rather than simply dissing each other with pre-written verses, they responded to what had just been said, what the other was wearing and the small details that made the exchange feel immediate. That is where the format really comes alive: no beat, just two rappers thinking on their feet and a crowd reacting in real time. XUG’s Electrifying Performance win made sense because he looked completely at home in that environment. His follow-up interview about Lahore’s hip-hop community also gave him a little more dimension beyond the scoreboard.
The episode also revealed what each contestant brings to the competition. SLA has the clearest improvement arc, King Hassan has established himself as a serious writer, Shishu Herry remains the entertainer, Fauji brings a technically aggressive style and XUG looks most at home in a live battle. Talon performed well but still hasn’t found a distinct identity within the competition. Episode nine was therefore a strong concept, reasonably well executed.
“If you’re gonna critique me, you better at least be as good or better” – ‘Fall’ by Eminem
Episode ten took the idea further by changing the question: instead of asking whether the contestants could handle pressure, it asked what they actually had to say. That made it the stronger episode, particularly when it came to character and emotional stakes.
Rap for a Cause was a tougher brief because technical ability wasn’t enough. Each contestant had to find a point of view and the gap between delivering good bars and having something meaningful to say became increasingly obvious. The opening set up the idea well: “If you have a mic in your hand, you have power.” The brief covered mental health, social problems, inequality, personal struggle and politics, leaving plenty of room for interpretation. Not everyone got there, which is precisely what made the episode worthwhile.
King Hassan was the biggest surprise. His material about wealth, hypocrisy and the suffering of people every day was sharper than anything he’d shown so far. The image of a driver passing a begging child whose father had cancer, followed by the reminder that death comes for everyone, took the song beyond straightforward social commentary and towards something more personal and unsettling. Talha Anjum’s response, “I wasn’t expecting this from you at all,” was perhaps the episode’s best character moment because you could see him reconsidering King Hassan in real time.
XUG, on the other hand, showed how the brief could expose the limits of a strong technician. His idea about personal responsibility rather than blame wasn’t a bad one, but he didn’t develop it enough. Talha Anjum’s question: “where’s the cause?” pinpointed the problem. XUG can rap, but this episode needed him to say something specific.
Talon was the most obviously cause-driven performance, moving through history, religion, minorities, labour and national identity around the refrain, “Change your thinking, then you’ll change the nation.” He connected the issues he raised to behaviour rather than simply listing grievances and still managed to hold the crowd. The only issue was that he packed too many themes into one song; the refrain gave it something to return to, but the sheer scale of the subject matter occasionally worked against it.
The interlude where host Sheszehra asked the judges what they did with their first real paycheque was a smart choice. Talha Anjum’s story about using it for his sister’s wedding and Bohemia’s story about his mother felt genuine and the conversation gave the episode some breathing room.
Fauji, meanwhile, struggled to get beyond the surface of his subject. His hook about money, bags and guns suggested an argument underneath the flexing, but too much of the verse stayed focused on the imagery. His own admission, “I just didn’t define the cause,” showed that he knew what went wrong. There’s something encouraging in that kind of self-awareness.
Shishu Herry was another surprise. Until now, he has largely been positioned as the comic contestant, so seeing him drop that side of his persona and take on something more serious changed the way the judges saw him. He took the brief and ran with it, touching on depression, dropping out and class divisions without losing the lyrical sharpness that makes him interesting. What made the performance work was how he pulled those ideas into a story that will feel familiar to a lot of young people, yet isn’t often spoken about by a young rapper on mainstream television with this kind of confidence. His admission that he hadn’t been happy with his earlier performances and finally felt he had told the truth added another layer to it. The Electrifying Performance buzzer felt deserved, not just because the performance was good, but because it revealed a side of him we hadn’t seen before.
Compared to Episode 9, SLA’s performance here was less settled. His message never quite landed, the structure kept circling back on itself and his confidence seemed to drain as he went. In a candid admission, he noted, “I was shocked on stage today and not confident.”
The religious reference in his verse made things more complicated. His criticism of people who perform piety while behaving hypocritically is fair, but by directing it specifically at Muslims, he narrowed what could have been a wider point about hypocrisy and faith. As the judges pointed out, the subject itself wasn’t off limits. It was the framing that could have been broader. SLA was ultimately eliminated and his response mattered too. He left without bitterness, carrying himself as he had throughout the competition.
Taken together, the two episodes marked a genuine turn for Rap Icon Pakistan. Episode nine tested instinct and nerve, while Episode ten tested conviction. One showed what these contestants could do, the other gave us a better sense of who they really are. That sense of identity also came through in the way they dressed and carried themselves. Their looks reflected street culture and hip-hop and doing so while sitting across from judges in Balenciaga jackets could easily have felt intimidating. Instead, they went all in. That matters because hip-hop culture has often existed on the margins, and here it was taking up space on mainstream television without being stripped of its identity. The social and economic inequalities surrounding these young artists haven’t disappeared, but the show’s strongest moments were the ones that let the culture speak for itself. In that space, they were all winners.
