With the hype steadily building around the release of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, we’ve now gotten blessed with the release of the film’s EP, Wakanda Forever Prologue, and it has the bangers you heard in the trailer.
Coming in at just 3 cuts deep, the prologue features Nigerian artist Tems soul moving rendition of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ classic song, “No Woman No Cry” along with “A Body, A Coffin, performed by Amaarae and “Soy,” performed by Santa Fe Klan (a Spanish song which no doubt is a nod to Namor’s Mexican heritage in the film).
In a press release for the Wakanda Forever Prologue, Ryan Coogler and Göransson explained how they went about choosing the songs to be featured on the EP:
“This Prologue is an aural first glimpse of Wakanda Forever. The sound world for the film began with extended trips to Mexico and Nigeria. We spent our days working with traditional musicians who educated us about the cultural, social and historical contexts of their music. We built a catalogue of instrumental and vocal recordings with them that explored both traditional and non-traditional uses of their musical material. During the nights on these trips, we had recording sessions with contemporary artists who were akin to the characters and thematic material explored in the film. Using the script as a blueprint, along with the recordings from the traditional musicians, we began to build a musical vocabulary for the characters, storylines and cultures. The instrumental score and soundtrack for Wakanda Forever both organically grew from these sessions and workshops. They are conceived together as a singular entity to create an immersive and enveloping sound world for the film.”
You gotta love how much Coogler and company respect the cultures that they’re exploring on the big screen and how they go about learning and integrating it into their craft.
Check out the cuts from the Wakanda Forever Prologue below and let us know which one is your favorite in the comment section below.