19 Very Serious Questions About the Music of ‘Trap’

“What if The Silence of the Lambs happened at a Taylor Swift concert?” This was M. Night Shyamalan’s elevator pitch for Trap, his new movie released last week. Except instead of Buffalo Bill, the authorities are staking out an arena to hunt down the Butcher, a serial killer played by Josh Hartnett, who has taken his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), to see her favorite pop star. And rather than Taylor Swift, the artist is the fictional Lady Raven, portrayed by Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka, who wrote and recorded a whole album’s worth of songs and performed them live onstage for the movie.

It’s not outrageous to wonder whether Trap exists mainly to boost Saleka’s real-life music career. I say this because Shyamalan admitted he was inspired to write the movie after watching his daughter perform, but also because as an attempt at coherent filmmaking, Trap is claptrap. The dialogue is stilted (though that may be by design), the plot requires an enormous suspension of disbelief, and the direction is bizarrely focused on characters speaking directly into the camera. If the past decade’s Shyamalan-aissance is measured by critical acclaim, this picture might be what kills it and, like the Butcher, chops it into deli-ready slices. Just as conceivably, an audience seeking nothing from our guy M. Night but eager-to-please popcorn absurdity could herald it as his latest big-budget B-movie triumph. It is, at the very least, an original concept and a rich meta-text about life as a Girl Dad. But someone else can hash out whether Trap is good cinema. I went because I wanted to know if it got the music stuff right.

In the lead-up to Trap, Shyamalan argued that it’s just as much a concert film as a cat-and-mouse thriller. Saleka spoke about how she wrote the songs in conversation with the script, to reflect the mood and substance of various scenes. Father and daughter discussed the influence of Bollywood and musicals like Purple Rain, and they made constant allusions to Swift, whose status as a “boss woman and CEO” supposedly helped shape the Lady Raven character. My interest was piqued—after all, the guy who made The Silence of the Lambs also directed the greatest concert film of all time—but my hopes were not high.

How could they be? Hollywood famously struggles to depict the modern music industry with much verisimilitude. From A Star Is Born to The Idol, filmmakers and showrunners cling to outmoded archetypes, seemingly not understanding the way pop music and pop stardom have evolved since the height of TRL. The aforementioned projects at least had undeniable superstars involved, and their soundtracks yielded actual chart hits (Abel Tesfaye was all the way in his bag on “One of the Girls”), but that’s a rarity in a field where on-screen pop stars often lack the talent and charisma to be believable as world-famous celebrity singers. Even worse, the music by these fictional characters tends to be boilerplate and forgettable—a disqualifying factor for a character who’s supposed to be one of the biggest names in the industry. If you’re going to ride the zeitgeist, the one thing you can’t afford to be is boring.

I went into Trap expecting more of the same, and although it did stumble into some of the usual pitfalls, there were times when the pop-star element was the most believable part of this preposterous film. For those who are similarly curious about Lady Raven, here’s an FAQ about the music of Trap and some of the concert mechanics.

1. M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter is a singer? Isn’t she a director too?

That’s Saleka’s younger sister Ishana Night Shyamalan. She’s directed music videos for Saleka, and she made her feature directorial debut with this summer’s The Watchers, produced by her dad.

2. M. Night produced one daughter’s directorial debut this year and made a separate movie centered on his other daughter’s music? Nepo babies, much?

Welcome to show business! Ishana joins a class of second-gen directors including Sofia Coppola, Jason Reitman, and Nick Cassavetes, while Saleka’s path was paved by the likes of Whitney Houston, Miley Cyrus, and Gracie Abrams. It’s an unavoidable reality that the entertainment industry is swimming with the children of celebrities, but hopefully they can at least use their advantages to make something cool.

3. OK, so is Saleka’s music any good?

It’s … competent. It won’t change your life. Saleka is a classically trained pianist who performs a mix of pop, R&B, and jazzy neo-soul, minus any of the implied gospel grit.

Her 2023 debut album, Seance, goes down smooth, like Kirkland-brand Alicia Keys; moments might remind you of fellow Philadelphian Jill Scott or the minimalist balladry of Billie Eilish and Frank Ocean. Saleka also leaned into the smoky, retro side of her sound for the soundtrack to her father’s Apple TV+ series, Servant, on which she voiced a deceased ’90s R&B singer named Vivian Dale.

4. You mean to tell me Trap isn’t the first time M. Night has forcefully inserted Saleka’s music into one of his projects?

She also had a song on the Old soundtrack.

5. Hm. Is she actually popular in real life, outside of the M. Night Shyamalan cinematic universe?

Saleka has not yet appeared on any Billboard chart. As of Sunday, she does boast 322,763 monthly listeners on Spotify, which seems like a lot until you realize the numbers today’s top R&B stars are putting up. Would-be peers like Summer Walker, Daniel Caesar, and Giveon are all well over 20 million, SZA is pushing 70 million, and streaming king the Weeknd has surpassed the 100 million mark.

6. Why does her concert in the movie start in the afternoon?

The premise, explained via dialogue early on, is that Lady Raven added a second show at the same venue after the first one sold out. Presumably, from a storytelling perspective, staging the big event before sundown allows more hours of the day for the high jinks that ensue afterward, when Trap’s meticulous plotting goes off the rails. But I’m pretty sure a star of Lady Raven’s magnitude would just add a second night, not schedule a matinee.

7. If the show started at a normal time, would more people have shown up for the opener?

Pity the poor, generic indie-pop act that had to play to a mostly empty arena as Lady Raven fans filed in and lined up for merch and Hartnett sat there, gloriously ignorant of how his night would unfold. Alas, this probably would have been their fate even at 7:30 p.m. The plight of the opening act might be the most realistic part of the movie.

8. Can someone get these kids a Yondr pouch?

As soon as Lady Raven steps onstage, everyone in the audience holds their phone up to capture photos and video. During an emotional part of the show, they use the flashlights on those devices to light up the arena. The centrality of smartphones is, sadly, one aspect of the concert experience that Trap gets right. The only unrealistic part is that the Butcher and his daughter didn’t spend the whole concert compulsively scrolling their news feeds.

9. Are we sure Lady Raven is supposed to be a stand-in for Taylor Swift?

Not exactly. The Shyamalans have often mentioned T-Swift to promote the movie, but they drew less from her musical style or persona than “her impact in society” and the intense connection her fans feel with her and each other. Saleka has cited Rihanna, Rosalía, Adele, and Eilish as inspirations for Lady Raven, all of whom are more obvious influences on the character than Swift. Ultimately, it’s more like Saleka’s playing a fictionalized, elevated version of herself than doing a pastiche of stars like Dua Lipa and Tate McRae.

10. Is that why her character seems stuck in 2002?

My biggest objection to the way Lady Raven is presented is that, as the Pop Pantheon podcaster DJ Louis XIV has pointed out, her persona seems based on an outdated archetype. She calls back to an era when pop stardom was more about glitz, artifice, and choreography, as opposed to the genre fluidity, diaristic singer-songwriter vibes, and social media–era relatability exuded by figures like Swift, Eilish, and SZA. That said, artists like Tinashe, whom Saleka would do well to emulate, still make dancing an important part of their shows. Even a rocker-slash-balladeer like Olivia Rodrigo has dancers in her live show, so you can’t really fault the Shyamalans for that aspect of the production. The rotating cast of dancers, with their constantly shifting outfits, rang true to me.

11. Why doesn’t Trap have more to say about stans?

The film could have done more to comment on some fans’ intense devotion to their chosen idols—a phenomenon that can be even scarier than a bloodthirsty suburban father, as seen in Donald Glover’s recent TV series Swarm—but it at least nods at stan culture. According to Riley’s T-shirt, Lady Raven has a fan army called the Flock. Riley and her fellow Lady Raven devotees spend the whole show in freaked-out rhapsody, singing along with their fave, with amazed, overwhelmed expressions that suggest they’re in the presence of a god. But the most audacious way Trap plays around the current parasocial environment happens after the concert ends, when Lady Raven harnesses the power of her social media following for a bit of high-stakes crime fighting via Instagram Live. In true Shyamalan fashion, it is both intensely suspenseful and supremely ridiculous. In the sequel, let’s see them organize online to goose Lady Raven’s chart placements, buy the latest deluxe variant of her album, and harass her critics on Twitter.

12. OK, but can they do the “Apple” dance?

In the concourse, Riley encounters a trio of girls performing the dance from Lady Raven’s “Save Me” music video and promptly joins them, with her dad recording it all for TikTok. These kinds of dance “challenges” are getting rarer on the video platform, but thanks to Charli XCX’s Brat Summer, which brought them back, Trap may have backed into accidental relevance on this one. The main difference is that these kinds of viral trends tend to be grassroots phenomena, not straitlaced imitations of a music video; where’s the Lady Raven equivalent of the Utah Boy Fit Check?

13. Exactly how many intermissions does Shyamalan think pop concerts have?

A mini DJ set or video segment while the star changes costumes, sure, but Lady Raven is fully pressing pause and bringing up the house lights at least twice during these gigs. More chances to sell merch, I guess.

14. On that note, where can I get one of those sick Source of the Bleeding Tour T-shirts?

Surely there are whole supply closets full of extras in my size at the Warner Bros. back lot, just like the ones in the fictional Tanaka Arena. Someone out there needs to hook me up. I won’t even steal your security badge.

15. Is Saleka believable as a pop star?

She’s certainly more convincing as a pop star than as a vigilante detective. As Lady Raven, Saleka is just magnetic enough to sell the fantasy. She may not be a born star, but she looks comfortable, she hits her steps, and she sings on key, which is more than some fictional pop stars can say. I didn’t fully appreciate her graceful presence until Riley was pulled onstage to flail around next to her during “Dreamer Girl,” a gliding minor-key track that plays like a hybrid of Nelly Furtado’s “Say It Right” and Nicki Minaj’s “Truffle Butter.”

16. So the soundtrack is decent?

The Lady Raven material is a step up from last year’s Saleka releases for sure. Songs like “Don’t Wanna Be Yours” and “Save Me” are built on hard-hitting hip-hop rhythms with just a pinch of global flair, like a less sophisticated version of Timbaland’s pop crossovers in the 2000s. Mild heaters like those are far preferable to piano ballads like “Release” and “Where Did She Go,” which aim for the big-screen tearjerker vibes of Eilish’s Barbie instant classic “What Was I Made For?” or Lady Gaga’s A Star Is Born finale “I’ll Never Love Again” but end up sounding more like maudlin Christina Aguilera deep cuts.

The best tracks contain elements of surprise that are mostly lacking from the album, like when Saleka breaks into pinched pseudo-rapping on the propulsive “Empathize” or lets her voice dart skyward in falsetto jolts on the chorus of “Liar.” Less exciting are the autopilot Kid Cudi moans on “Divine” and the feature from RapCaviar C-lister Russ on “Hiding.” (Both rappers are far more entertaining in the movie, where they ham it up—in long, flowing wigs for some reason—as fictional characters making surprise guest appearances at the concert.) The most rewarding cameo comes from the Ghanaian American Afrobeats star Amaarae on the closing track “Pieces,” another blast of slithery pop R&B that serves its function but never really serves. We can only imagine what magic might have happened if Lady Raven got on a track with the late, great Mid-Sized Sedan.

These Lady Raven songs don’t truly pop, and they feel slightly out of step with what’s happening in music right now—less like the stylized 2000s nostalgia that prevails and more like actual 2000s radio filler. If this was the new album from an established star like Camila Cabello or Halsey, I’d be underwhelmed, and nobody is mistaking it for a new Beyoncé blockbuster. To its credit, the production is crisp, and the hooks are sufficiently hooky. If I passively encountered one of these songs on the radio between Muni Long and Chris Brown, I wouldn’t flinch. I just can’t imagine going out of my way to seek this music out.

17. Speaking of Cudi, will someone please get him a honeysuckle sour kombucha?

No one chewed more scenery in less time than Cudder, who rocked a long, blond hair-metal wig, peered deeply into the camera, and badgered his assistants with demands for hyper-specific beverages. His character—known, in one of the movie’s most spectacularly bizarre details, as the Thinker—was like Lil Nas X on steroids. I need a spinoff movie about his flamboyant exploits. Make it a trilogy.

18. Hey, look at that hole in the floor. Wouldn’t it be cool if we went down there?

Wouldn’t it?! More arenas need to add trapdoors in the floor, IMO. Though maybe not if Russ will emerge from them.

19. Does M. Night’s claim that Trap doubles as a concert film stand up to scrutiny?

“I directed an entire concert!” Shyamalan told Empire. “And it wasn’t just a thing in the background. It’s equally important.” That’s a stretch. It’s true that Saleka performed a whole show as Lady Raven, often repeating songs to allow the actors to shoot more takes, and that her father documented the whole elaborate production. But for the most part, the musical sequences do take place in the background, over the shoulders of the characters whose actions are advancing the plot. Only a Flock diehard would assign these sequences equal weight with the drama unfolding in the foreground—not in terms of significance to the story, and certainly not in terms of entertainment value. But according to that logic, of course the director has an inflated view of his daughter’s big pop-star moment. If the existence of Trap proves anything, it’s that M. Night Shyamalan is Lady Raven’s biggest fan.

Chris DeVille is managing editor at Stereogum and is based in Columbus, Ohio. You can follow his work on X @chrisdeville.