In a blockbuster movie, nothing says “important” quite like the imposition of a large orchestra—especially one that favors a Eurocentricity that’s historically been set against black expression. The use of such an orchestra in Black Panther is intriguing because the film is the first of its magnitude to carry the joy of an African utopia that never was. The story wraps itself with a specific kind of grandness that a traditional, classical orchestra has rarely appealed to. Ludwig Göransson—the composer of the Black Panther’s score who’s frequently worked with the film’s director Ryan Coogler, not to mention Childish Gambino—does incorporate some African accents into his 132-piece orchestra, but even he noted that that’s not really enough. “The most difficult part is that as soon as you put production and orchestra on top of African music, it doesn’t sound African anymore,” he told Pitchfork. “So the challenge was incorporating these things and making them still feel African.”
Part of what keeps Göransson’s use of African music from feeling dilettantish is how he recognizes the breadth of the Black Panther universe. The horns swell and the polyrhythms rumble not with a distant awe, but with a believable intimacy; the reference point isn’t the mere idea of Africa, but all of what that idea encompasses. In a spectacular way, Göransson’s score captures the multiplicity of the fictional country of Wakanda.
”Wakanda”—which plays when the hero, the Black Panther T’Challa, prepares to take his throne in the film’s opening act—offers a glimpse into that sort of specificity. T’Challa begins the movie as an inheritor of a new kingdom who feels the magnitude of his deceased father’s legacy, and in this vulnerable moment, Senegalese musician Baaba Maal solemnly cries a song that serves as a metaphor for the fallen king. Göransson isn’t simply ticking off the diasporic boxes; he’s rooting them in an emotional context. The sadness adds gravity to the piece’s later half: Regal brass decorates a wide shot of Wakanda, signifying the glory he’ll have rule over.
The movie’s main villain, Erik Killmonger, is given that same amount of care and development. Not only is he a foreigner to the nation despite his familial ties; his worldview barely intersects T’Challa’s, who puts his loyalty to his nation over Killmonger’s desire to empower black people outside of the continent. The piece of music named after him embodies the inner conflict that drive his actions. The tambin flute appears as a ghostly presence, its windy notes puncturing with the urgency of an ancestral cry from the afterlife. But the theme resolves with trap hi-hats that now dominate hip-hop. The change-up and its familiarity re-centers Killmonger as an African-American, whose generations-old plight pits him against Wakanda’s isolationism.
So when Killmonger brings these elements with him to Wakanda, he becomes the disruptor. The Black Panther’s righteousness doesn’t do him much good at first, though. The royal horns and drum that once marked T’Challa’s presence—signifiers of his pride—are reduced to gasps in the pivotal second-act scene where his rival destroys him in ritual one-on-one combat, at times quieting altogether to emphasize the scene’s brutality. Killmonger’s venomous out-of-placeness is further harped on as we see him cooly marching toward the throne, as the camera flips upside down and the hi-hats rollick once again. Yes, his role as an outsider comes from being a villain. But how much of a home is Africa, really, for African-Americans when they’ve been systematically detached from the motherland for centuries?
Despite the emphasis on African instrumentation, the score’s classical elements don’t exist solely as accouterements: The orchestra delivers its traditional magnificence while the African signatures humanize it. The most significant example is that string phrase that rises in parts of “Ancestral Plane”—an emotive section that expresses a tension and surrender, like a fist unclenching in divine humility. That theme is featured when T’Challa visits the mythical ancestral plane as part of his ritualistic duties as the new king. When he gazes at the beautiful, purple-hued universe, the music helps the audience share in his reverence but it never feels like it’s manufacturing that emotion.
It’s a testament to Göransson that he gives the score’s most resounding moments over to the African diaspora. Near Black Panther’s end, T’Challa takes the wounded Killmonger to a cliff so the tragic warrior can gaze upon Wakanda’s majesty. The orchestra gives the scene a climactic weight, but it eventually recedes to push Baaba Maal’s weeping croons to the forefront. There’s triumph mixed with a sense of mourning as he sings to this beautiful, fictitious land. Alas, the sun must set on Wakanda as well.
