He's produced hits by Lara Trump and the January 6 choir. Now he's tapped a hip hop mogul to help MAGA music go mainstream

The producer behind hits by the J6 Prison Choir and Lara Trump is teaming up with a legendary hip hop impresario in a joint venture that looks to tap into the power of MAGA music fans.

L.J. Fino helped turn a rough recording of 20 inmates imprisoned for their role in the Jan. 6 attack on Congress singing down a phone line into a chart-topping single featuring Donald Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

He told DailyMail.com that other hits, featuring Trump allies such as Kari Lake and daughter-in-law Lara, showed there was a market for a new 'counter culture' musical movement.

Now he is teaming up with Chris Schwartz, the record executive who turned Cypress Hill, Kris Kross, and the Fugees into household names, in a joint venture. They aim to bring a new type of recording artiste to a bigger audience.

'With this counter culture, America First music, there's a void in the marketplace, and major labels won't touch it,' said Fino.

But he said his experience, and the examples of 'Rich Men North of Richmond' by Oliver Anthony and Jason Aldean's 'Try That in a Small Town,' showed there was a sizeable audience.

Not to mention the fact that Donald Trump won the popular vote at the last election with upwards of 77 million votes, representing 77 million potential buyers.

It means Fino, a frequent visitor to Trump's Mar-a-Lago headquarters, has the backing of Schwartz and the major industry muscle of his distributor Universal.

They signed a deal in September and are now lining up artists for their roster.

'I formed a partnership with LJ Fino because as with any emerging music genre, there are key players who have across the board relationships with in the community of artists, managers, who make up this movement,' said Schwartz.

'L.J. is an invaluable resource for tapping into the this genre’s participants.'

Schwartz has an impeccable hip hop pedigree, having become an early player in the movement during the 1980s. He distributed Schoolly D’s 'P.S.K./Gucci Time' in 1985, a single credited as the first gangsta rap record and the inspiration for the likes of Ice-T and  NWA.

His record label, Ruffhouse records, became the launchpad for some of the most successful hip hop and electronic acts of the 1990s, such as Wyclef Jean and Lauren Hill.

Fino said he was a groundbreaking music executive then, who still had his eye out for the next big thing now.

'He's one of those guys in the 80s and 90s that found rap music and realized that there was a huge marketplace for it and that major labels were ignoring it,' he said.

'And it just turns out that he is a naval veteran and huge Trump supporter, the one music mogul wow that I had found that really, loves Donald Trump and is a Republican and isn't scared to tell people ... because most of them are.'

He said his experience with the J6 Prison Choir showed there was a massive untapped market.

He was brought into the project after meeting the former Fox News host Ed Henry, who sent him a recording of 20 prisoners signing the national anthem from behind bars.

'It sounded like absolute s***,' said Fino. 'I said, there's something we can do with it, but we need to rerecord it.'

Fino already had experience of recording incarcerated rappers, so knew how to route it all through a professional recording studio.

Kash Patel, now tapped by the president-elect to head the F.B.I., took the polished recording to Trump. 

'We wanted to see if he would support it. We weren't expecting President Trump to say, I'll put my voice on it too, and you can use my name and likeness. But he did,' said Fino.

'He did the Pledge of Allegiance in one take ... 15 seconds long, walked out and we had it.'

It debuted on the Billboard digital sales chart at number one in March 2023, with more than 30,000 copies sold in the first week. 

Another hit came weeks later, with Kari Lake appearing on a single entitled '81 Million Votes, My Ass,' a reference to the number of ballots won by Joe Biden in the 2020 election. 

It peaked at number one on Billboard's Alternative Digital Song Sales chart. 

Those songs, with their novelty value, are one market. But Fino said the real market lay with people who didn't want to be lectured by the Taylor Swifts of this world.

He pointed to the success of Lara Trump's version of Tom Petty's 'I Won't Back Down,' which made number 10 on the Billboard download chart.

She followed it up with 'Anything is Possible,' co-written by Stacy Barthe, who has worked with Rihanna, Britney Spears, and Katy Perry among others.

Fino said the aim was eventually to cover a range of genres with a wide roster of artists.

'It really doesn't matter, as long as the lyrical content resonates with those individuals,' he said. 'I mean, it's 76 million people who voted for President Trump. 

'It's a large market that's a lot of people to sell the music to.'