The soundtrack for the 2018 American superhero film Black Panther, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name and produced by Marvel Studios, consists of an original score composed by Ludwig Göransson and original songs performed or curated by Kendrick Lamar. Göransson worked on all of director Ryan Coogler's previous films, while Lamar and Coogler had previously discussed collaborating and the musician agreed to perform several songs for the film after seeing an early version of it.
After reading the film's script, Göransson traveled to Africa to research traditional African music for the film. He went on tour with Senegalese musician Baaba Maal, and recorded performances by Maal and other African musicians for use in the score. Notably, Göransson used recordings of talking drums and a tambin for character themes in the film, while Maal sung an original song for the opening of the score. Göransson combined these traditional African elements with the classical orchestra that is often used in superhero films. The orchestra was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, along with a choir singing in the Xhosa language.
Wanting to match the film in terms of addressing important themes, Lamar decided to produce a full curated soundtrack album rather than just the few songs requested by Coogler. Because of the film's set release schedule, Lamar had less time to work on the album than he usually would. He began work with producer Sounwave while on tour, before completing the individual songs in collaboration with many different artists. One of these collaborators was Göransson, who worked on one of the songs and included elements from the album in the score. Coogler felt the album became its own piece of art rather than just a tie-in to the film.
Lamar's soundtrack was released as Black Panther: The Album by Interscope Records on February 9, 2018, to large sales, including the top position on the Billboard 200 chart. It was praised by many critics as a milestone for film soundtracks due to its ideas and lyrics, but it was considered by some to be weaker than Lamar's solo work. Göransson's score was released as Black Panther (Original Score) by Hollywood Records on February 16, and received praise for being unique among Marvel Cinematic Universe scores due to its authentic African elements and thematic material, though the album presentation was criticized as being too long. It won Best Original Score awards at the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards, while the song "King's Dead" from Lamar's album also won a Grammy.
Background Ryan Coogler signed on to direct the film Black Panther for Marvel Studios in January 2016, and insisted that he bring collaborators from his previous films to work on Black Panther, to differentiate the film from others in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that Vultures Kyle Buchanan described as often being created by "the same in-house people." This included composer Ludwig Göransson, who began working with Coogler at the University of Southern California and scored his earlier films Fruitvale Station and Creed.
Coogler had previously met with musician Kendrick Lamar and Anthony Tiffith of Top Dawg Entertainment to discuss each other's work and the potential for them to collaborate on a project. Coogler wanted Black Panther to include some original songs from Lamar, an idea that Marvel supported, and approached the musician with footage from the film after Lamar had completed work on his album Damn Lamar and producer Sounwave were "drawn in by the opening scene and the deep message this movie told." They wanted to match the film's "energy and raw emotions," but felt this would be difficult with the few songs Coogler requested and instead decided to create a full album. The soundtrack features songs that are heard in the film as well as others that are inspired by it.
Original score Research As with his previous collaborations with Coogler, Göransson began work on the Black Panther score as early as possible, much earlier than any other composer on a Marvel Studios film according to producer Nate Moore. Göransson began discussing the film with Coogler immediately, and the director shared research he did in Africa while preparing for the film; Göransson read the first draft of the script as soon as Coogler was happy with it, and read comics from Ta-Nehisi Coates' run on Black Panther, which had just begun. Göransson acknowledged that he is an unlikely candidate to write African music given he is Swedish, and decided that he needed to go to Africa himself to do his own research. He noted that the fictional setting of the film, Wakanda, was never colonized and so the music found there would not have been influenced by Christian music. Coogler also wanted to use authentic African sounds, a first for a superhero film, and trusted Göransson to balance this with the "anthemic" quality of a traditional superhero score.
Göransson spent a month in Senegal, first travelling around with musician Baaba Maal for a week while he was on tour, and then spending several weeks working with local musicians to form the "base" of his score. After Senegal, Göransson went to South Africa and spent a week at the International Library of African Music in Grahamstown listening to thousands of recordings of music from different African tribes, and recording music on hundreds of instruments that "don't really exist anymore." He said, "To be able to go there, record the instruments and use them in the movie ... it was an incredible opportunity." Göransson then returned to Los Angeles where he planned to combine the African music he had discovered with his usual orchestral and modern production techniques to create the final score. He said it would be a challenge to do this while still having the music "feel African," and had to approach the score as infusing an orchestra, played in the tradition of African instruments, into actual African music.
Composition
Göransson had initially approached the score with the idea that music in Wakanda could be anything due to its being a fictional country, but discovered that "music from Africa is a language" used for storytelling, with every instrument and different musical rhythm given meaning, and wanted to ensure that this was reflected since the country is still clearly in Africa. He wanted to specifically acknowledge existing African music that applied directly to scenes in the film, such as using rhythms that were created thousands of years prior to represent large battles during the big fight sequences in the film. Another example of this is the challenge scenes in the film, which include traditional challenge rhythms performed on a sabar drum by soloist Magatte Sow, along with "additional color" from a kora and a vuvuzela (an instrument often heard at sporting events).
In Senegal, Göransson was particularly drawn to the talking drum as a form of communication in addition to being a musical instrument. This became the first sound he used in the score to represent T'Challa / Black Panther, and he described it as "the first seed of how the instrumentation affected the process." T'Challa's theme consists of six talking drums being played together, with a solo talking drum performance by soloist Massamba Diop layered over those. These were combined with the sound of a talking drum mimicking the word "T'Challa" and a beat from a Roland TR-808 drum machine to "beef it up." Göransson used the base talking drum rhythm, 808 rhythm, solo talking drum, and "T'Challa" talking drum motif as the primary rhythm for T'Challa in the score. On top of this rhythm, Coogler and Göransson chose to use horns to make the character's theme sound more royal, with Göransson writing music for the horns that he felt was more rhythmic than melodic and allowed them to be interpreted as coming from the rhythm of the talking drums rather than a traditional western theme with drums in the background. Göransson did write a specific six-note melody for T'Challa, also played on the brass, which serves as the final piece of the character's main theme and also is used as a main theme for the film during scene transitions and for driving the overall story forward.
After hearing a musician in Senegal named Amadou Ba playing a tambin, or Fula flute, Göransson told him the backstory of villain Killmonger in the film and Ba played some music in response to the story. Göransson felt this music fit the character well, and it became the first element of Killmonger's theme for the film. Ba's performance revolved around a root note that Göransson gave him, and included singing, screaming, and laughing into the flute as he played it, with one of the words screamed being "Killmonger". Göransson described the performance as "sad but also aggressive, energetic and impulsive." The composer sent his recordings of the Fula flute to actor Michael B. Jordan to help him prepare for portraying Killmonger in the film. The Fula flute is used as a sample piece earlier in the film, but transitions to full performances of the flute as Killmonger takes over Wakanda, and represents the character's Wakandan origin and aspirations. It is paired with a piano melody for Killmonger that is mysterious at first, and accompanied by a harp to represent the character's intelligence. The piano then transitions to strings to show the suffering the character has endured, inspired by the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Göransson also chose to use more modern production techniques, such as the 808 beats, for Killmonger's music than the rest of the score, with a "trap beat vibe," because the character is American and represents modernity in the film. Göransson used his experience with African-American music such as hip hop and rapping—which he gained as a producer for Donald Glover's "Childish Gambino" work—when developing the more modern elements of Killmonger's theme, and noted that these elements were similar in sound to the traditional African drums in the score, allowing him to move between the sounds of Killmonger and Wakanda in the final battle scene without taking the audience out of the film. The final element of the character's theme is a four-note "punctuation" with brass and choir that adds mystery and drama.
For the introduction to Wakanda in the film, Göransson was inspired by a "ceremonial outcall" that Maal began each of his shows on tour with. The composer collaborated with Maal on a song in this style which features the latter singing about the death of an elephant in the Fula language, symbolizing the death of T'Challa's father T'Chaka. When T'Challa visits the spirit of his father in the valley of the dead, Göransson felt the dialogue was so emotional that the instrumentation should be changed to reflect that, and so opted to focus on strings rather than percussion. This "ancestral theme" also serves as a theme for the relationship between T'Challa and Killmonger, with a broken down, "tiny piece" of the string motif heard in Killmonger's theme to show that "it's all related in a way, just as [the characters] are related by blood"; Göransson actually developed this familial theme for all the characters from the Killmonger flute motif, using part of the music originated by Ba. For T'Challa, it is played longer and with a full orchestra, and indicates that he is "trying to find his way in life." Other themes composed for the film include one for T'Challa's sister Shuri, which was played on a balafon, and one for the Dora Milaje warriors, consisting of a group of Senegalese women 'yipping' which Coogler described as a "chu chu" sound. The latter was supported by a female choir from London.
Recording