Black Panther was an instant classic the day it came out as the final product lived up to a lot of the hype it received beforehand for its work in creating a predominantly black cast with an African American director. Despite how incredible it was for a predominantly black cast and an African American director to get this much support and publicity for a major motion picture, especially one made by Disney, I remember most of the excitement surrounding the soundtrack that Kendrick Lamar produced.
Kendrick Lamar is one of the most famous rappers ever, let alone of this generation and his inclusion shows how important respecting both African and African American culture was to the movie along with its ideas of challenging social constructs. A few years before the movie Kendrick Lamar visited South Africa for the first time and revered the culture he encountered. He was the perfect choice for this soundtrack as he has become a celebrity who helps personify Pan-Africanism through what he has done and said regarding trips and business in Africa.
Wakanda is shown through Afro-futurism through the music as the song “Wakanda” starts off similar to something reminiscent of the lion king before the brass joins in sounding off triumphant horns as they enter a futuristic utopia. This type of music, often featuring African rappers that are not well known in the united states, is used throughout the movie to help paint Wakanda as African yet by no means behind the times as it is clearly more technologically advanced than anywhere else in the world. The soundtrack switches to his own music for the hip hop and rap music that is used when outside of Wakanda such as in the South Korea fight scene. This is to highlight the Pan-African undertones shown by Killmongerer throughout the film. Continuing in the idea of challenging social injustice, Kendrick heavily features SZA throughout the soundtrack to help highlight the powerful black women of the movie. Not only did it make sense to use a popular Black rapper to help produce the soundtrack to this movie, but Kendrick Lamar was the perfect fit for this role shown by the incredible soundtrack he produced that helps highlight the thematic social injustice issues challenged throughout the movie.
References:
Madden, Sidney, and Rodney Carmichael. “’Black Panther: The Album’ Is Kendrick Lamar’s Parallel, Pan-African Universe.” NPR, 21 Feb. 2018, www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2018/02/21/587334273/black-panther-the-album-is-kendrick-lamar-s-parallel-pan-african-universe.
Rosen, Jody. “Review: Kendrick Lamar Goes Superhero-Producer on ‘Black Panther’ Soundtrack.” Rolling Stone, 13 Feb. 2018, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/review-kendrick-lamar-goes-superhero-producer-on-black-panther-soundtrack-199263/.