The Making of “Wakanda” from ‘Black Panther’ With Ludwig Göransson

The highly-anticipated Black Panther film is available now on digital and blu-ray. The Kendrick Lamar-curated record titled Black Panther The Album, music from and inspired by the film, was released to positive reviews. But another important music component for the Marvel film is the score, which was created by the Grammy award-winning composer Ludwig Göransson.

Göransson previously worked with Black Panther director Ryan Coogler for the 2013 film Fruitvale Station, and he has also scored sitcoms such as Community and New Girl. He’s a longtime collaborator with Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) as well, producing his hits “Redbone,” “Me And Your Mama,” and “Freaks And Geeks,” among others.

The composer spoke to Genius about crafting the scoring track “Wakanda,” named after the fictional East African nation the movie is set in. Göransson says he was blown away by the script and traveled to Africa to research for the score.

“One of the first things that I did was to figure out where to go,” he says. “It’s a big continent and there’s so much different music in every country, in every different tribe. They all have their different instruments, they all have a different language. I called a lot of friends traveling around there.”

One of his friends recommended he meet Baaba Maal, a legendary Senegalese singer and guitarist, and Göransson joined him on tour for a week. “He opened up his solo shows with this just kind of like, ceremonial outcall,” he recalls. “Every time I saw it I got goosebumps, and I was like, what if we start the movie like that? What if we start the score like that?”

The two ended up collaborating for the music, and Göransson also explained how much of an influence Maal’s concerts had on the score. “People have been waiting for this movie forever, this is culturally something that has never been done before.” he says. “When I went to Baaba Maal’s concert, as soon as he started singing it was like waking up from a coma or something and I really was trying to recreate that moment with this piece of music.”

Check out the full Deconstructed episode above to learn more about how the song was made, and download the Hollywood Records score soundtrack here and stream it here.