On May 16 at 10:30 MTV will premiere Jamie Kennedy's Blowin' Up, a quasi-reality series in which Kennedy and his pal Stu Stone (who met when they worked on the animated series Da Mob) try to score a record contract with their quirky rap songs. They've been showing a pretty lengthy trailer for the series on both MTV and MTV2 and you can also watch the first part of the premiere episode over on MTV's site.

The show doesn't seem all that interesting, but it has me intrigued nonetheless. While it is ostensibly about Kennedy wanting to get a record deal, the show actually seems built around the fact that he's not a very good rapper. Stu Stone, whom Kennedy describes as the DJ Jazzy Jeff to his Fresh Prince, knows how to spin, but his rap skills aren't much better than Kennedy's. So, rather than making a "serious" show, they make one about being turned down constantly in their quest to secure a record deal. It's an odd mix of "please take me seriously" and "I'm just having fun with this," and it could be interesting to watch Kennedy try to inhabit the skin of both a "serious" rapper and a self-deprecating comedian. It might not be Breaking Bonaduce, but it could open a tiny window into the inner machinations of Jamie Kennedy's brain, for whatever that's worth.