5 Singers That Inspired Trap's Lady Raven

WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for Trap.

Salkea Shyamalan was inspired by several real-life singers when creating her pop star character Lady Raven in M. Night Shyamalan's 2024 thriller Trap. Josh Hartnett stars as a serial killer disguised as a supportive father in Trap. Trap also features the feature film debut of Shyamalan's daughter Saleka as pop singer Lady Raven, who plays a major role in the cast of Trap. Saleka's Lady Raven sings and performs throughout Trap at a concert venue where Hartnett's Cooper is being set up. Most of the original music in Trap was made specifically by Saleka under her fictional pop star name Lady Raven.

Trap features several real-life singers and rappers such as Kid Cudi, Amaarae, and Russ. Born in 1996, Saleka made her feature film acting debut in Trap. Her character, Lady Raven, is essentially a fictionalized version of her real-life stage name, Saleka, as a singer and recording artist. Saleka released an entire debut album to accompany the release of Trap titled "LADY RAVEN" with featured tracks by Kid Cudi and Russ. Saleka also made some of the original music in her father's Apple series Servant. Both albums can be found on Apple Music and Spotify and heard throughout Trap.

By the end of Trap, Cooper cleverly finds his way out of many tight situations after Lady Raven exposes the truth about his serial killer identity to his family. As the police close in, Cooper is able to escape and take Lady Raven hostage, only to eventually return to his house to enact his revenge against his wife, who he discovers had set him up to be trapped at the Lady Raven concert in the first place. Lady Raven also worked hand in hand with Dr. Josephine Grant (Hayley Mills) to try and catch the killer known as The Butcher, putting herself in harm's way and ultimately using her platform to catch a mass murderer.

5 Rosalía

Part of Saleka's process in creating Lady Raven was narrowing down the similarities and differences between her style of music in reality and Lady Raven's overall sound in the movie. Saleka has credited international pop star Rosalía as one of her main influences in crafting her Lady Raven character in Trap. In creating the sound of Lady Raven, who is a fictional extension of Saleka's real-life pop singer persona made specifically for the M. Night Shyamalan movie, Saleka noted that "Rosalía’s fusion of flamenco and pop" greatly influenced the sound of her character's music (via Outtake).

Rosalía is one of the biggest pop stars in the world and is known for being atypical for blending several different types of genres together, which was also one of Saleka's goals in crafting Lady Raven. Saleka told Consequence, "R&B’s a big influence. Jazz is a big influence. Indian and Latin music is a big influence. I like to bring in those textures into the production especially." Like Rosalía, Saleka also wrote songs that would be intended to be performed in front of a big audience. "It’s all supposed to be in the stadium. Bringing all those things together in a pop music structure was the goal there." Since pop music is one of the most common genres of big arena tours, it makes sense that Lady Raven chose to emulate one of the biggest in the world.

4 Rihanna

Another one of Saleka's influences behind the creation of Lady Raven is Rihanna. According to Outtake, Saleka was inspired by "Rihanna's boldness," which has contributed to her onstage confidence and presence as both Saleka and Lady Raven. This makes sense in the context of Trap as Lady Raven is the star of the show throughout most of the movie, which requires her to be not only confident but convincing and motivated in front of an audience, which is certainly not an easy feat. As a veteran pop star, Rihanna possesses a unique ability to captivate and command her audience, which Saleka infused into her Lady Raven.

Rihanna is undoubtedly an accomplished pop singer as well as a dancer who has mastered complex and demanding choreography throughout her career. Since Saleka's role was physically demanding as well, she revealed that they spent just as much time, if not more, working on the choreography for Lady Raven as the music itself. "We had so much fun with the choreography. For me, it was almost like shooting a music video for 10 songs in a row," (via Outtake).

Considering just how much of Trap features concert footage from Lady Raven's live performance, Saleka seemingly had the most demanding role in the film, using her combined talents of acting, songwriting, singing, and dancing all in one single project. Saleka said of the total workload, "We basically prepped a tour. It’s 10 songs that you see on stage and we choreographed almost every single one of them, except for the ballad," (via Consequence).

3 Billie Eilish

It's no surprise that Billie Eilish, who is arguably the biggest musical icon of Gen Z, inspired the 28-year-old Saleka. According to People, Saleka was inspired by both Rosalía and Billie Eliish's stage presence. "I watched a lot of videos of Rosalía performing on stage, and Billie Eilish and just artists that I love because for me, I’m kind of this introverted, shy person, so walking out on stage with confidence is not something that comes naturally to me, so I was trying to channel all of the beautiful pop stars of our generation.” Saleka appears to have channeled Eilish's natural ability to perform in front of a packed arena despite being a humble and introverted creative.

Saleka acknowledged that there was certainly a gray area between herself and Lady Raven but also distinguished a clear difference. According to Consequence, "I would say Lady Raven is a lot more confident and extroverted than I am, so that was the main challenge for me as an actor — the times where I would maybe cower into myself and want to be small, the character doesn’t do that, so I had to fight my natural instincts there and portray what this character would do, which is she’s brave and she’s bold and she’s confident." Saleka also clarified how this role helped her as a pop singer in real life. "I think that was like a great exercise for me in life, because I want to be those things. It was a lesson for me in trying to practice being the person that I’d want to be."

2 Adele

Adele is another music icon Salkea found inspiration from when creating her Lady Raven character and sound for Trap. Like the aforementioned artists, Saleka took notes on Adele's "stage presence" in order to build her Lady Raven character into an authentic and believable pop star (via Outtake). One of the most popular songs off of Saleka's LADY RAVEN album titled "Where Did She Go" sounds like it could have been written and performed by Adele on a structural level. The classic piano ballad is the most apparent link to Adele on the soundtrack. Adele is also known to invite fans onstage during her live performances.

Like Saleka, Adele certainly has experience with writing music specifically for films. She co-wrote and produced the song "Skyfall" for the James Bond movie of the same name, which earned an Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media. On the subject of songwriting, Saleka said, “I really love writing for film and TV, and obviously reading the script, you know, my dad really incorporated the music into everything." Saleka noted how her songwriting also uniquely aligned with not only her character's story, but Cooper's as well. "It’s very intertwined with the narrative, not only in Lady Raven’s character but also in Cooper’s [Hartnett] character, as he’s kind of observing it and having his own emotional journey towards it,” (via Outtake).

1 Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift likely had the biggest impact on Lady Raven's character as a pop star and businesswoman. According to People, Saleka explained that she and the creators of Trap, "talked a lot about Taylor Swift on set and how she’s this boss woman and CEO." Of course, the devotion of Lady Raven's fans is also emblematic of the massive fandom that Swift has amassed in real life, particularly her historic 2023 Eras tour that was going on during Trap's development. Saleka wasn't the only Trap cast member who was impacted by Swift. Harnett attending a Swift concert with his daughters helped him grasp the authenticity of the concept of Shyamalan's film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hartnett took his daughters to see Taylor Swift's Era Tour in London in July 2024, just about a month before Trap's theatrical release. "What was amazing about it, I sent a picture to Night basically saying this is life imitating art. Because when we shot the film I felt like his characterization of the audience felt over-the-top to me, as someone who hadn’t been to a pop concert with their kids yet." Hartnett soon realized that it was actually Trap that was influenced by the global impact of Taylor Swift's iconic world tour. "Their intense idolizing of Taylor Swift and like crying when they saw her and all of that was in line with what Night created here, which I was pretty impressed by."

M. Night Shyamalan was also inspired by Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, using it as a way to help visualize and even pitch Trap before the film's release. In an interview with Empire, Shayamlan summed down the premise of Trap with a simple question: "What if The Silence of the Lambs happened at a Taylor Swift concert?" While the aforementioned artists inspired Saleka to craft the stage presence, choreography, and musical sound of Lady Raven, Taylor Swift was a key inspiration for Trap itself.

Sources: Outtake, People, The Hollywood Reporter, Consequence, Empire

Trap is a film by writer-director M. Night Shyamalan under his Blinding Edge Pictures label. The film is part of a deal struck with Warner Bros for him to direct and produce several films under their banner. 

Release Date August 2, 2024

Studio(s) Blinding Edge Pictures , New Line Cinema

Distributor(s) Warner Bros. Pictures , New Line Cinema

Cast Josh Hartnett , Hayley Mills , Marnie McPhail , Vanessa Smythe , Saleka Shyamalan , Malik Jubal , Jonathan Langdon , Peter D'Souza , Ty Pravong , Kaitlyn Dallan