Notes on the Black Panther Movie Soundtrack

Audio/soundtrack notes from the ‘Who is Wakandan? Representation in Black Panther’ panel from NineWorlds 2018.

It’s been a great pleasure to be invited back to NineWorlds 2018 and to talk about the Black Panther soundtrack for the ‘Who is Wakandan? Representation in Black Panther’ panel earlier this month! There was literally too much to discuss and we barely scratched the surface of what the soundtrack contributed to the Black experience and identity. In this article, I sum up my audio notes from various sources (mostly from interviews) and to make these sources easily find-able.

Note that I do not have any Black heritage, so I cannot comment on the Black experience. Any opinions/input expressed comes from my own personal experience/background.

I hope you enjoy my notes and that these bring a deeper understanding to the impact this film and soundtrack has on Black representation in film/media in general!

Sources:

• The Making Of “Wakanda” With Ludwig Göransson | Presented By Marvel Studio’s Black Panther (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XtCnGT0B20) by Genius
• Episode 131: Black Panther Ludwig Göransson — “Killmonger” by Song Exploder
• How the Music in Black Panther Tells a Story — (https://youtu.be/gVVS7gsm9N0) by Sideways
• Interview with Ludwig Göransson (http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=18528) by Film Music Magazine
• Director Commentary of the Black Panther film (iTunes version)
• Kendrick Lamar: Creating The Black Panther Album (https://youtu.be/H1k7R4Uh62s)*

*I didn’t manage to research too much into Kendrick Lamar’s input into the Black Panther soundtrack since this is more of a companion album and Hip-hop focused (which has its own history and impact in the Black community). However if you want to go deeper into that aspect, check out the link!

You can listen to the entire Black Panther Soundtrack on Spotify here:
https://open.spotify.com/album/7KDslrXaOYS28ferZi5UVK

Black Panther Fanart by Laura Smith https://twitter.com/lsmith335

Ludwig Göransson — Composer of Black Panther

• Born and raised in Linköping, Sweden
• Already an established composer prior to working on Black Panther
• Has worked with Ryan Coogler (Director of Black Panther) for 10 years.
• Is also a record producer and has worked with Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino. The same Childish Gambino of ‘This is America’ which references a lot of the types of violence the Black community faces in America.

Before Black Panther

• Coogler went to Africa for inspiration and sent Göransson an early script. Göransson did the same and went to Africa to study traditional African music.
• Through a contact, Göransson went on tour with artist Baaba Maal for a week and even borrowed Maal’s studio.

Composer Influences

• Maal would do a ceremonial outcall in live concerts so this is echoed in the track ‘Wakanda’.
• Maal is from the Felani tribe and in this track, Maal sings about an elephant who has just died. The elephant represents the King (T’Challa’s father) and that it’s time for someone to take over, but not to rush into it.
• Since Wakanda has never been colonised, Göransson went to places where they still had “Griots” — the West-African term for musicians/historian who tells oral stories through poems. They come from a bloodline of musical families that go back thousands of years.

If you are a musician, you are a story teller.

Instruments / T’Challa’s Theme

• Talking drums. Played by putting it on your shoulder and you squeeze it to change the pitch. Meant to imitate human speech.
• The solo talking drum (performed by Senegalese player Massamba Diop) would imitate T’Challa’s name on the drum.
• The use of Horns give T’Challa’s theme a more ‘royal’ feel.
• Roland TR-808. Was the first drum machine with which users could program a percussion track from beginning to end. Imitated acoustic percussion by analogue synthesis. Revolutionised the electronic and hip-hop music genres. You can hear this in Marvin Gaye’s ‘Sexual Healing’.

In the soundtrack, the Roland TR-808 imitates the rhythm of the Talking Drum performing T’Challa’s theme/name and is used to ‘beef it up’.

Hip-Hop / Rap Music in Context

• Developed round the 1970’s predominantly by the multicultural exchange of African-American communities and young immigrants and children of immigrants from countries in the Caribbean, living in the Bronx, New York.

T’Challa Vs Killmonger’s Theme

• Killmonger’s theme consisted of Sabar drums, Kora (which sounds like a harp) and the Fula flute (comes from the West African Felani Tribe).
• It was also the hardest to write for Göransson.
• There are 4 layers to Killmonger’s theme: 1) mysterious piano melody, doubled up by the harp. The harp represents his intelligence since he studied at MIT. The strings represent Killmonger’s suffering and was inspired by Bach’s ‘St. Matthew Passion. 2) The Fula flute represents Killmonger’s African heritage. 3) The Trap/Rap layer refers to Killmonger’s roots in Oakland and the production style is influenced by the artist Metro Boomin. 4) Horn motif which punctuates Killmonger’s character, doubled up with a choir which creates added drama.
• Killmonger’s theme has the Western/colonisation (Bach) contrasting with his African heritatage (Fula flute) which also contrasts with his ‘new’ ideals (Trap/Rap) against Wakandan traditions.
• Göransson told the Fula flute player, Ama Dubah* Killmonger’s backstory and character. Once known, Dubah translated it through performance on the flute and even said ‘Killmonger’ while playing. The end result was a very distinctive performance and sound. (http://songexploder.net/black-panther at 9:20)
• To make Killmonger’s character even more complex/sinister through his theme, the Bach strings with a pitched down flute creates and eerie voice sound.
• T’Challa and Killmonger are cousins so they both share a melodic theme. When they go to the Ancesteral plane, the string instrumentation represents their connection. Horns = T’Challa, flute = Killmonger.

Film / Soundtrack Sync Points

1:42:26 — When Black Panther returns, the choir sings “kun kani, kun kani waytu”* in Xhosa which translates to ‘our king’.

*I bought Black Panther on iTunes to see if they had any Making-Of featurettes for the music / audio and there were sadly no resources! I found this little nugget of information when I watched the director commentary which had terrible subtitles, so apologies for spelling out the Xhosa translation phoenetically. Urgh!

Random Facts

• The original Black Panther comic was released at around the same time as the original Black Panther Movement.
• The film opens in Oakland which is where the original Black Panther Movement originated from.
• The use of the colour blue represents colonisation (like the British Museum scene). Purple for spirituality / royalty.
• The ‘Wakanda Forever!’ Salute comes from two sources: the Egyptian pharaohs and sculptures from West Africa, as well as the words “love” and “hug” in American Sign Language (ASL).
• W’Kabi’s Rhino is called ‘M-20’.

This about sums up my prep notes for Nine Worlds 2018 and I’ve probably left out other interesting nuggets of information. Feel free to let me know of any other tidbits to add or correct me on anything. Thanks for reading!

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