From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel

Ari immediately raised his hand, and when it seemed that the MC was just going to skip past him, he raised his voice.

"Excuse me, MC, I have a question."

"Yes, contestant Ari?"

"Can you share the reason that Jelissa is no longer here? Will we get a chance to say goodbye?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have a lot of details, but I assume that something important came up. Otherwise, she would continue because I know how much she loved being a mentor to you all. As for getting to say goodbye, I'm not too sure about that. You might have to ask the production team. Does that answer your question?"

"Sure. Thank you. I'm sorry for the interruption."

Hearing the MC's polite answer and seeing William's smug smile, Ari had a sick feeling in his stomach that Jelissa's leaving was somehow his fault.

It was just too abrupt otherwise.

"Of course. Then, please welcome Producer Benny Walker. He's a producer who has produced many songs for some of the greatest artists, like Larry Jackson, and many others. He'll be taking over the A and B rank vocal classes that Jelissa was in charge of, and helping with the overall music production and direction."

As the contestants clapped politely, a man of medium height with long, straggly, dark brown hair sauntered onto the stage.

He was dressed in white, sparkly glittery slacks and a matching jacket with no shirt, so his chest hair was exposed.

On his feet were white glittery loafers, and covering his eyes were purple star sunglasses with dark lenses.

As the air conditioner blew toward him, Ari could smell a whiff of some strong alcohol, which made him gag.

"Hello there, I'm Benny the Producer—your new trainer and judge. I'll put it out there that I'm not like Jelissa, who has been babying you all and making you feel special. I'm now in charge of whipping you guys into shape, especially those of you who are getting too big for your britches just because you're getting a little bit popular and well known."

Ari swore the man turned to look at him as he was speaking.

"Anyways, you've all had it pretty easy until now, getting to choose your songs, positions, and arrangement willy-nilly. You all think you're the bosses of your performances. Even when performing someone else's song, you just added different bits and parts as you pleased without any respect to the original song, right? Cause you're all so talented and think you know better than the original artist."

Once again, Ari swore that the man turned to look at him.

"Originally, I planned to stomp that out because that's just a delusional dream and not how the music industry works, but then I thought. Why not let them experience it for themselves? The hardship of doing everything end-to-end. I really wanted you guys to feel the pain and suffering that we musicians go through in creating songs that people chop and screw as they please in the name of arrangement, but your production team said no, so we had to meet somewhere in the middle."

"I got a couple of producer friends to create several songs for you all. We made everything from rap tracks to R&B to ballad-type songs, and of course, the typical pop songs. There's a basic concept, guide vocals, and rudimentary choreography, if applicable, but everything else falls on you guys to complete it thoroughly. And I mean thoroughly. Clean up the choreography; the chorus might be fine, but make the lyrics make sense, and make it a performance worth watching. In just over 10 days, you'll be performing at a guerrilla concert, where you'll be the opening act. There's what, 40 of you remaining?"

Producer Benny paused to take a flask out of his pocket and take a large swig of it while everyone stared at him in shock.

"Uhm, Mr. Benny, you can't have alcohol while we're recording. There are minors here." The MC tried to step in, but he was quickly waved off.

"Ahhh, good stuff. Don't worry, don't worry, I'm keeping the drinking light, and you guys can just edit it out anyway. Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, 40 people. You've been split into 4 teams of 7 people and 2 teams of 6 people. I'll play the tracks so that you can listen to them, and naturally, I won't tell you who made what. Just know that when it's time for your midterm evaluations, they'll come see if you're butchering their songs or if you're doing it justice. Oi music crew, get the music started and bring a screen so I can show these damn brats some things, and bring me a chair as well."

The area was silent until production members began rushing to comply with the request.

A large flat screen TV was rolled out, and a comfy armchair was brought from somewhere.

After making himself comfortable, Benny clicked a remote and the TV screen began displaying a slide show.

"This first song burp- is something for the ladies if you know what I mean. It's loosely called 'WWWL - World Wide Web of Love'. Watch and listen carefully since I made this one."

The sound of a guitar strumming over a sentimental beat could be heard before a soft voice began singing.

I need you,

I gotta see you,

There are hearts all over the world tonight,

Said there's all over the world tonight.

As the song played, Ari nodded along with other contestants joining him.

It was a good song that wasn't too difficult, wasn't too high, had a lot of emotion to it, which the audience might like, and sounded easy enough to perform live, even when playing another instrument.

The choreography also looked pretty simple, which was a huge plus.

As Ari looked over to the side, he and Jamie made eye contact with each other before nodding in understanding (hopefully).

Ari immediately moved it to the top of his list of songs he wanted to perform.

"Burp. Next is something for you pop song addicts. No talent needed since the melody will do the work for you. The song is Soda Bubble Pop."

With one click of the remote, the next song, which had a bright sound that immediately gave the imagery of summery, sugary fun.

You're all I can think of,

Every drop I drink up,

You're my soda pop,

My little soda pop

Energetic dance moves were shown on the screen, and while they looked relatively easy, the song itself wasn't Ari's vibe, so he moved it down his list.

"Next up, for the rap kids. Here you go. The song is called, well, there's no name, so let's just listen to it."

An intense electric guitar-like beat sounded out before being punctuated by drums, electric trumpets, random whistling, and then a low 808-type beat.

Ari kept on waiting for the actual song portion to come on, along with any choreography, but it never came by the time the clip ended.

"Ah, I forgot, there are no words to this one, and it's a bit unfinished. Well…rappers should write their own lyrics and finish their own songs anyway, so who cares. Moving on-"

Seeing the lack of care toward that song, Ari immediately moved that song to the bottom of his list.

He had no interest in rapping or performing a song that the producer couldn't be bothered to even name.

Producer Benny went through 3 other songs, and 2 of them made Ari's list.

One of them was in a similar vein as Warrior and had a kind of rock vibe to it, with an equal distribution of singing and rapping. While it wasn't exciting, it was a safe song that Ari knew he could nail and would sound good live.

The second song was a slow, vocally heavy ballad with soaring high notes, intricate harmonies, and a heart-wrenching sound that needed someone with a strong voice and good voice control to sing it.

He had seen both Carlos and Jamie's eyes light up before burning into the side of his head when they heard it, and that song had immediately moved up to his number one.

"So what did you think. Liked the songs? Burp." Benny took another swig of his flask as the contestants began discussing with each other.

- yessss

"Good. Ah, I think I forgot to tell you, but you're not picking your own team or songs. As the expert in the room, I've already made the decision. When I call your name, please come to the front. Burp."

Benny began fishing in his jacket pocket until he pulled out

"Let's see. Levi, Vishal, Mathew, Minjun, Leo, and Ariel. You six step forward."

Ari walked forward and stood in a line with the other 5 boys, silently wondering what criteria had caused them to be grouped together and which song they would get.

He was the only vocalist on the team, so honestly, anything was fine as long as it wasn't-

"You six will be performing the unnamed rap song and rapping. Congratulations."

Before his brain could fully process his thoughts, Ari found his mouth speaking, "I think you've made a mistake."

"And what mistake is that? Which one are you again?" Producer Benny took another swig from his flask, causing Ari to wrinkle his nose once more at the smell.

"I'm Ariel."

"Sir."

"Pardon?"

"Refer to me as sir when you talk to me."

"Okay, sir. You assigned me to a rap song. I'm a vocalist. Unless you're saying I can add vocals to it?"

"Of course not. It's strictly a rap song. If I wanted vocals on it, I would have selected a different song."

"Then I think you made a mistake. I've never rapped before and never indicated that I wanted to rap. I'm strictly a vocalist."

"It's not a mistake, I'm simply expanding your horizons." The producer paused before smiling a creepy wide smile, "Everyone is always talking about how smart you are, and didn't you say that you were smart and talented enough to excel at anything you put effort into? Well, put some effort into this, Mr. Rapper. Now go sit down, I have other groups to announce."

In a daze, Ari glanced at his team members before walking back to his seat slowly.

You want me to be a rapper?

Me?

What have I ever done to give you the impression that I can even rap?

I have no interest in doing such a thing.

[Aren't you glad you saved that stat point?]

[Now you can put it to good use.]

[^_^]

Remembering that his Rap stat was currently an F, Ari wanted to flip NOVA off.

What the heck was one stat point going to do for him???

With a feeling of frustration, Ari watched the rest of the teams be assigned.