Independent artist Tom MacDonald said Monday that some in the music industry are working to suppress his new rap song, “Facts,” which features Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro, over the content of the song.
“Facts” openly rejects the glorification of destructive behavior that is so commonly promoted in rap music, MacDonald explained during an appearance on Shapiro’s “The Ben Shapiro Show” podcast.
“In our song, in the pre-chorus, we talked about not promoting guns, not promoting drugs, we talked about not turning people’s sons into thugs and their daughters into h**s,” MacDonald said. “We sort of spoke out against what the status quo in hip-hop is, and for some reason we’re treated — we’re living in some sort of upside-down, backwards freak show — and it just seems like the most destructive material [is promoted].”
“Hip-hop is full of a lot of destructive material; the promotion of violence, the romanticizing of mental health and prescription drugs recreationally — it seems like those things tend to get the most mainstream attention and then anything that speaks out against that, especially in our case, has been suppressed,” he added.
Shapiro read lyrics from one of rapper Megan Thee Stallion’s top songs, “Hiss,” which is rife with curse words, the n-word, and the promotion of promiscuity, and compared it to some of the lyrics in MacDonald’s song.
“The most offensive lines [from us] are things like, ‘there are only two genders, boys and girls,’ and ‘where did all the American flags go?’,” Shapiro said. “That’s the ‘offensive’ stuff.”
“If we’re gonna make sure the kids don’t see damaging material, we got to stop Tom MacDonald,” Shapiro quipped. “They really do not want us to hit number one on the Billboard charts, obviously.”
MacDonald said in a video posted online Sunday evening that TuneCore, a distribution company for independent artists, refused to release “Facts” because of “lyrical content.”
“This is how the music industry screws independent artists,” MacDonald said. “Whether you like me or hate me or think my music is awesome or think it’s trash, I don’t care.”
He also said YouTube was suppressing “Facts” by keeping it in the second slot on the platform’s trending songs, despite it garnering more views and comments than the leading song, Megan Thee Stallion’s “Hiss.”
“We’re outperforming her in every metric,” MacDonald elaborated on Monday. “And the further we get in the lead — we’re stuck at number two. They’re not allowing us to pass Megan [Thee Stallion] and hit that number one spot.”
The music industry doesn’t “want this song at number one,” MacDonald told Shapiro. “And they certainly don’t want Ben, who has publicly criticized the genre many times — they do not want Ben at the top of the Billboard charts.”
Shapiro, who routinely poked fun at his rapping “skills” throughout the podcast, joked that the only thing “more crazy” than the apparent suppression of the song, is that he’s on a rap song that’s number one in the country on iTunes.
