Meeting the talent

Ben Shapiro puts a tiny foot into the music business

Via.

[A conference room. Seated at a shiny wood table is BEN SHAPIRO in a cream turtleneck, navy blue suit, and expensive shoes; SHAZBOT, a youngish white guy with a short, sparse light brown beard and only slightly longer hair on the final two-thirds of his scalp, large black glasses with lightly smoked lens, an orange-and-squiggle Charlie Brown shirt with a pinstripe vest over it, parachute pants and huaraches; and CHARLES ADAMS, a fortyish lawyer in fortyish lawyer clothes. SHAZBOT has a tiny keyboard and a MacBook Pro in front of him.]

SHAPIRO: [Speaking a mile a minute in a mosquito voice, as usual] So here it is guys, our family entertainment empire is going absolutely great, it’s going to wipe the floor with woke Disney and become industry standard, we have some great movies and TV shows lined up and I’m sure you know we’re giving me a big build-up as a cowboy action star, which is going great, yesterday I rode a horse, felt totally natural and next time I think I’m gonna go solo. But one area we’re not quite up to speed is music, and that’s so important, not only financially and in terms of our empire but culturally. The music that’s out there, I don’t know if you know, Charles, but it’s absolutely disgusting, with smutty talk about wet vaginas and erect penises, I mean I don’t see how they get away with it but they make bank I believe the kids say, so we need a fresh sound that maybe the style is the same, I don’t know, I know nothing about the music business, don’t really relate to music except culturally and morally, never really felt it in my, well, there’s so other way to say it, in my butt like they say you’re supposed to, but I do know what people need and I know our music should be something young people like but the theme should be something innocuous or chaste and you know reflect the proper values, like, I’m just spitballing here, going to church or responsible use of firearms.

ADAMS: [After a moment] OK. Ben, this is Shazbot, he’s a rapper and an all-around talent, a genius really, he’s won awards, plays everything himself, produces it himself –

SHAPIRO: [Points at the laptop] You got it all right in there, huh, Shaz? Or is it Shazbot.

SHAZBOT: ‘Scool.

SHAPIRO: Harvard. And you went to?

SHAZBOT: No, I mean it’s cool. Whatever you want to call me.

ADAMS: Shazbot is very eclectic in his themes, he writes and raps about a wide variety of topics. For instance last fall he rapped about root vegetables for the Tulsa Botanic Garden.

SHAPIRO: And you feel you can meet the brief I just laid out.

SHAZBOT: Mm.

SHAPIRO: [to ADAMS] Is that a yes?

[SHAZBOT stands up.]

ADAMS: I think Shazbot is about to spit.

[SHAPIRO flinches, rolls his chair back.]

SHAPIRO: What!

ADAMS: No, Ben, he’s going to play. Listen.

[SHAZBOT works the keys and laptop; a backing track plays that some readers will recognize as substantially that of “Get Into It (Yuh)” by Doja Kat.]

Gas is goin’ up
Bring back Donald Trump
I can’t drive my truck
Bring back Donald Trump
All the kids are trans
Bring back Donald Trump
Time to pass some bans
Bring back Donald Trump
Gas is goin’ uh-up —

[SHAPIRO signals, ADAMS waves SHAZBOT down.]

SHAPIRO: OK, OK, listen, Shazbot, that’s very musical, very of the moment, I think we’re on the right track but the message we want is cultural, not political — not candidates but values! Something, like I’m not sure if you read The New Criterion —

[SHAZBOT holds up a hand — SHAPIRO shuts up. SHAZBOT resumes — it’s the Doja Kat track again, but now it really sounds like the “You just wanna party” and then the “Ya need to get into the jet” sections of the song.]

You just want some values
Mother father children
You need institutions
Godly men to build ‘em

Turn out the schools, where on perversity they batten,
Fill ‘em up with incels teach theology and Latin
You see, it’s on the tradcath classics they will smarten
For me, it’s Chesterton and not Teilhard de Chardin
Gonna choke out any groomer who promotes sex education
Keep biology above the waist, that’s how you save the nation
If they graduate promote ‘em to a job befits their station
If they flunk out don’t you punk out camp ‘em like a concentration
I just got a buck, yuh
Get into it, yuh,
Pop out with a truck, yuh,
Get into it, yuh, pop out, pop out —

ADAMS: Excuse me. Excuse me!

[SHAZBOT stops. ADAMS is looking at his phone sternly.]

Shazbot, will you wait outside, please.

SHAZBOT: Problem?

SHAPIRO: I thought it was good.

ADAMS: Just a few minutes, we have to confer. There’s a lounge, right down the hall.

[SHAZBOT shrugs, leaves. SHAPIRO goes to ADAMS.]

SHAPIRO: Why’d you send him away? That was a great adjustment he made. I mean I felt myself strangely moved. Like I was in the club. “Da” club, you know? Like I think this guy gets it!

ADAMS: The music track is a straight rip from a hit song by Doja Kat.

SHAPIRO: Doja —

ADAMS: Very popular act. Everyone would know. [Shows Shapiro his phone] I had Shazam on and it picked it right up.

SHAPIRO: Well, let’s make a deal with this Doja Kat then.

ADAMS: A deal?

SHAPIRO: How much do you think it would take? She’s got to have a price, I mean these people have no morals.

ADAMS: You’re kidding.

SHAPIRO: In fact that’s exactly what we should do, across the board. Creating music, when you think about it, it’s capitulating to the power of the creative class. Because it implies that creativity is a value, in and of itself, outside of morality. But we know creativity is only useful when it applies to our ends — which is strengthening the morals of our people.

ADAMS: OK.

SHAPIRO: Music is a means, not an end. So let these pot-smoking, wet-pussy people write their [makes air quotes] music and we’ll just put our messages on top of them. And when one crop of tune-writers weakens, their appeal weakens, we’ll just get rid of them and bring in some younger ones.

ADAMS: Are you sure you don’t know anything about the music business?

[BLACKOUT.]