Recently, some blockbuster superhero films have brought the worst out of pop music, leaning into their huge budgets to create mismatched team-ups no one asked for. Think Suicide Squad pairing Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla $ign, and Logic with Imagine Dragons and X Ambassadors or Bright force-feeding us a Migos/Marshmello mashup. So at first pass, it was welcome news that Kendrick Lamar and Top Dawg Entertainment CEO Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith will curate and produce the soundtrack for Marvel’s Black Panther. The decision threatened to finally shake things up for comic book cinema, giving rap’s greatest risk-taker his largest canvas. But if “All the Stars,” the soundtrack’s first single featuring Kendrick and SZA, is an early indicator, Black Panther: The Album is doomed to the same fate as its predecessors.
It makes sense that Black Panther director Ryan Coogler chose Kendrick for this project: The Compton artist has a natural cinematic flair. (good kid, m.A.A.d city was literally billed as a “short film.”) But “All the Stars” is so generic, so nondescript, that it reeks of compromise, devoid of personality or any true vision. There isn’t anything memorable about the writing or performing; Kendrick and SZA may as well be stand-ins. That isn’t to say the song is unlistenable; Kendrick raps well enough about conflict and resolve and SZA delivers a big, hopeful anthemic hook over the slick production’s streaking synths and stamping drums. The song makes for decent set-dressing, but it pales in comparison to their recent works, and is full of heavy-handed plotting and everyman cliches: “This may be the night that my dreams might let me know/All the stars are closer,” SZA sings. “All the Stars” is uncharacteristically conservative for these two stars, all in service of a bigger picture.
