Words by Nick Slay
If you haven’t heard name Ludwig Göransson before, odds are you’ve heard his music.
Ever since the Swedish implant hooked up with Donald Glover on the set of of NBC’s hit sitcom Community, they have created amazing music that has taken them from TV soundlot to the Grammy doorstep. As other half of the multi-Grammy nominated act, “Childish Gambino,” the group can now be mentioned comfortably in the same sentence as Jay-Z, as both are up for the coveted Album of the Year award. However, this is just a stepping stone for young producer. After scoring music for shows like Community and blockbuster boxing movies like Creed, his next ambitious undertaking will be Marvel’s highly anticipated, Black Panther adaptation set to premiere in February 2018.
Some fans felt Göransson was snubbed for his work on the Creed soundtrack in much the same way fans felt director Ryan Coogler was snubbed for his work on the film. With the all of the anticipation for Black Panther, the dynamic duo will have a second chance for redemption this time around. Göransson took a very similar approach when he started the research process for scoring the upcoming flick. For Creed, he went to a local boxing gym and recorded the background sound and noises that would become melded into the soundtrack and score.
To tackle Black panther, he had to go deeper so he traveled to Senegal and South Africa to create the framework for the sound of the upcoming film. For Ludwig Göransson it was as special task creating the music that would fit the fictional country of Wakanda. As many Marvel fans know, what makes Wakanda unique is that in the Marvel Comic universe it is the most technologically advanced country and civilization on the planet, and it’s king T’Challa has the genius IQ enough to head to head with geniuses such as Tony Stark aka Iron Man.
The other part to note is that it was a country that was never colonized by European powers, so Göransson had to create music that represented them accurately. Yet it is worth noting while recording and meeting different African musicians he also made respect the importance of African music. Since most sounds, songs, and drum rhythms all their own context thought has to be used on how to use them in the score appropriately.
With the help of a 150 piece orchestra the Childish Gambino producer set upon the awesome task of creating a rich undertone to support the grand scale of the film.
Black Panther premiere’s in America February 16th, 2018.
