We. Cannot. Wait. Black Panther: The Album will drop on February 9 and the movie on February 16 (Feb 22 in Antigua). Rapper Kendrick Lamar is producing and curating the soundtrack with Top Dawg Entertainment founder Anthony Tiffith. Lamar is also featured on the album alongside artists such as SZA, The Weeknd, Travis Scott, Vince Staples, Jorja Smith, Khalid, and more.
The album features songs from the movie as well as new music inspired by it. Lamar and Tiffith worked with Black Panther director Ryan Coogler to make sure the music is “specific to the needs of the film.”
Tracklist:
- “Black Panther” Kendrick Lamar
- “All the Stars” Kendrick Lamar, SZA
- “X” – Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz, Saudi
- “The Ways” – Khalid, Swae Lee
- “Opps” – Vince Staples, Yugen Blakrok
- “I Am” – Jorja Smith
- “Paramedic!” – SOB X RBE
- “Bloody Waters” Ab-Soul, Anderson .Paak, James Blake
- “King’s Dead” – Jay Rock, Kendrick Lamar, Future, James Blake
- “Redemption Interlude”
- “Redemption” – Zacari, Babes Wodumo
- “Seasons” – Mozzy, Sjava, Reason
- “Big Shot” – Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott
- “Pray For Me” – The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar
Director Ryan Coogler reiterates that Black Panther is his most personal film. For Coogler, Black Panther was an opportunity to wrestle with questions he’s been dealing with his entire life. His first feature film, Fruitvale Station (2013), won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award for U.S. dramatic film at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. He also co-wrote and directed the seventh spin-off film in the Rocky film saga, Creed (2015), and of course the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Black Panther (2018).
While all of Coogler’s films have touched on the Black experience, Coogler says that it’s Black Panther, and the opportunity it gave him to explor African heritage, that might be his most intimate.
“This film is possibly the most personal film I’ve made to date,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald. “To me it deals with the answer to a question that I’ve been asking myself since I was very young—what does it mean to be African? That idea, that concept, I was very interested in and drawn towards.”
He continued by saying, “I was able to explore that in making this film. It enabled me to fulfill a longlife [sic] dream of going to the continent of Africa—researching—for the first time. The things that I learned about the continent and the things that I learned about myself were invaluable. I tried to put some of that energy into the project.”
