Several great trailers debuted at the Marvel Studios panel this past weekend at SDCC. But none got the tears flowing quite like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Ryan Coogler’s film is very much a living tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman. And his memory permeates the whole trailer. The grief weighs heavy in the faces of the entire cast, as the nation of Wakanda mourns its sovereign. And one of the key ways the trailer elicited emotion from us was the use of music.
The use of a cover of Bob Marley’s “ No Woman No Cry,” by Nigerian artist Tems, arranged by composer Ludwig Göransson, was perfect. That song, along with “ A Body, A Coffin,” performed by Ghanian artist Amaarae, and “ Soy,” by Mexican rapper Santa Fe Klan, make up a new Wakanda Forever EP. And you can also listen to that EP on Spotify with all three tracks right here:
Here’s what Coogler and Göransson had to say about Prologue:
“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 that explored both traditional and non-traditional uses of their musical material.”
They added that “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.”
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will hit theaters on November 11, 2022.