The Black Panther soundtrack has proven to be a smash with about 300k copies moved already in the U.S. alone and set for another week at the number 1 spot on the Billboard 200.
The soundtrack, which accompanies the blockbuster film, features stars like Kendrick Lamar, Future, Travis Scott, The Weeknd and more as well as newer acts like Jorja Smith, SOB x RBE and Khalid among others. But the set was originally set to feature many more big name artists.
Sounwave, TDE’s in-house producer and the man behind many beats on the soundtrack, has revealed that other stars were slated to appear on the soundtrack but did not make the cut due to either lack of time to clear the songs or they just did not fit the theme.
“We were also on a very strict time limit, so all through the DAMN. Tour, Kendrick and I would hop right offstage into the studio bus, creating different ideas from beats to hooks,” says Sounwave. “We even ended up scrapping great songs with big-name features on them because we couldn’t clear things in time or they didn’t fit the overall concept, but it all worked out at the end,” he continued.
Sounwave also explained how they picked the sounds for the soundtrack. “When the opportunity for Black Panther came up, we immediately thought this would be the perfect project for Kendrick, Top and TDE to put their creative vision to. TDE sat with Ryan and the two creative worlds merged, resulting in an amazing album.”
“We were listening to a massive South African playlist for months, straight to where we became big fans of the sound and culture. And that was an important part, because we wanted to go inside their world to get an organic sound, sonically and emotionally,” the producer continued.
Kendrick recently told BBC Radio 1 that he would love to play Erik Killmonger’s role in the follow up to Black Panther.
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