Black Panther The Album

The film Black Panther is not the first black blockbuster, or even the first black superhero movie, but there has never been a movie on this scale directed by, written by, acted by, and designed by black talent. In the wake of campaigns to diversify cinema and disrupt the Hollywood hegemony by hiring more people of color, lofty expectations have been placed on a film of this magnitude. Helmed by Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) and starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, and Lupita Nyong’o, the film has put blackness to the fore and there are hopes that this production will build on recent wins like Moonlight and Get Out to usher in a more inclusive industry. It’s quite a bit of pressure for a man in a panther suit.

Black Panther follows T’Challa (Boseman), protector of his homeland Wakanda—a fictional African nation—fighting to earn his recently inherited kingship. The verdant Wakanda produces Vibranium, an ore that makes the country the most technologically advanced civilization on Earth and a world leader in weapons manufacturing. But the self-sufficient nation has remained hidden from the rest of the modern world for generations. T’Challa is tasked with handling Wakanda’s transition out of the shadows and Kendrick Lamar has been tasked with bringing rap to Wakanda.

Coogler, who always wanted to work with Kendrick on a project, essentially got a full-length Kendrick Lamar album out of it. Kendrick and Top Dawg CEO Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith curated and produced the album with in-house producer Sounwave, and they sat down with the film’s composer Ludwig Göransson to work some songs into the score. Coogler selected Lamar because the themes in his music—foremost on that list: blackness as an identity, spirituality, power dynamics, self-doubt, and the onus of kingship—align with those in the film. Some of the music is from the movie, some is merely inspired by it, so don’t expect to see Wakandan tribal dances performed to 2 Chainz one-liners. But despite all its moving parts, and its by-the-numbers singles, Black Panther The Album is finely-tuned, aware of its audience, its objectives, and the stakes.

Black Panther The Album is at its best when channeling Wakanda’s innovative spirit and self-sustaining ethos, characteristics we have already come to associate with Kendrick. He is one of the most ambitious MCs there is, a rapper of nearly unlimited potential who operates like a well-oiled machine. Kendrick has five official features on the album, but he appears somewhere on every track. Being a soundtrack for a Disney-backed superhero movie, it was never destined to possess the boldness and urgency of his solo work, but it often feels monumental. When it isn’t radical in its sonics (like incorporating the robotic whines of James Blake into a calypso-ish tune on “Bloody Waters”), it’s radical in its casting, enlisting diverse guests and forming unlikely pairings with mostly wondrous results.

The opening title track finds Kendrick at his most explosive. The beat erupts beneath him as he draws parallels between his own internal conflict and T’Challa’s, weighing the burdens that come with being a leader of people. On the audacious “King’s Dead,” Kendrick takes on the role of T’Challa’s nemesis, Killmonger, shirking those same duties. “Who am I? Not your father, not your brother/Not your reason, not your future/Not your comfort, not your reverence, not your glory,” he fires off. Each song works as a movie narrative device at its most rousing.

Some tracks sidestep experimentation and big ideas for more generic and pop-friendly vibes. There have to be some hits, after all. Even with an amended SZA verse, “All The Stars” is still underwhelming, its artists acting as stand-ins, supplying heavy-handed plotting and everyman cliches. The flute-led “Big Shot,” with its whiny sing-song and forgettable Travis Scott verse, is a misfire. And the album-closing tag-teamer, “Pray For Me” with Kendrick Lamar and the Weeknd, is just a watered-down reanimation of the Tesfaye’s recent solo work—Starboy-lite. These may look like big-budget set pieces, but they come off as set dressing.

Elsewhere, though, when untethered to story or chart-landing constraints, the album is hugely satisfying. There’s the slapping, DJ Dahi-produced “Paramedic!” which introduces the Vallejo foursome SOB x RBE to the world with punchy raps that jump up out of the pockets. “X” opens amid amped-up shit-talking (”Not even Kendrick can humble me,” Schoolboy Q chants, defiantly), then inverts the beat for the silky 2 Chainz verse. Ab-Soul delivers some of his best raps in years on “Bloody Waters”; in his solo work, he can get bogged down spelling out his more zany concepts, but here he simply follows the script provided for him, uncorking his signature wordplay.

While TDE and friends perform at high standards, Africans rule Black Panther The Album and dictate the pace of every track they land on. Self-professed gqom queen Babes Wodumo is in her element on “Redemption,” doing call and response and swaggering through her verse. Johannesburg alt-rapper Yugen Blakrok steals the show on “Opps,” outmaneuvering K. Dot and Vince Staples: “Spit slick, attack is subliminal/Flowers on my mind, but the rhyme style sinister/Stand behind my own bars, like a seasoned criminal/Gotham City Streets, I’ll play the (Riddler)/Crushing any system that belittles us,” she raps. Sjava sings his whole verse in isiZulu on “Seasons,” as the rapper Reason and Sacramento native Mozzy break down racial inequity. With its rotating international lineups, the TDE cultural exchange program delivers collaborations as enriching as they are surprising.

The tie-ins to the film can be tenuous, but Kendrick and company bring 50 minutes of big-time team-ups and crossovers scanning black music across three continents: rap, R&B, gqom, Afro-soul, and pop from South Africa, throughout California, London, Texas, and Ethiopia by way of Toronto. The album is a sampler of the film’s broader vision of black excellence. It’s fitting that this slightly convoluted, sometimes generic offering largely delivers on its promise, much like the larger comic world it now occupies. A fun, rap-centric album is now Marvel canon. In their first roles as bit players, the TDE roster delivers a product benefiting the whole. Their effort is one befitting the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and its blackest entry.