Series captures Goransson’s process to create film music
Ludwig Goransson initially felt tremendous pressure in composing new music for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” with hopes of living up to his Oscarwinning score on the franchise’s 2019 epic first film.
But instead of dwelling in his successful past, Goransson focused on pushing the sequel’s future forward with fresh tunes entirely inspired by the film’s storyline. With just a script in hand, the Swedish composer flew to Mexico City, where he spent time with a music archaeologist to re-imagine Mayan music. He later jetted to Lagos, Nigeria, with director Ryan Coogler to build up the African soundscape for the soundtrack.
After returning to the U.S., Goransson and Coogler received some good news: Rihanna had agreed to lend her vocals on “Lift Me Up,” which was written as a tribute to “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman, who died from cancer in 2020. The music superstar created the song with Goransson, Coogler and Nigerian singer-songwriter Tems, who also performed Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry” for the film’s trailer.
Goransson is also featured in “Voices Rising: The Music of Wakanda Forever,” a three-episode series now streaming on Disney+ that delves into the creation of the film’s score and soundtrack.
This interview with Goransson has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: With the film’s new storyline after Boseman’s death, when did you figure out your musical direction? A:
I didn’t fully know where to start until after
having a conversation with Ryan about Namor and Talokan — the origin story of their tribe and Mayan culture. I told Ryan “I have to make this as truthful as possible.” I knew the Mayan music, traditions, culture, books were all forcibly gone. It was forcibly erased. Music in other countries that were colonized didn’t disappear. In West Africa, the tradition of the music goes on, being passed down from generation to generation. That didn’t happen in Mayan culture. It was an obliteration of a culture. So, we didn’t know exactly what the music sounded like. But there are experts that do research in that field in Mexico.
Q: What was your experience like working with the experts there and uncovering some of the erased Mayan music from 500-plus years ago? A:
I call them music art archaeologists. They’ve been devoting their whole life to finding a lot of the instruments in graves. You can look at the instruments, like the flutes for example, and you can see the fingerprints, and which holes have been used the most. You can see the intervals have been used the most. You can kind of re-imagine the sound. You
can also study the codex, the wall paintings and see pictures of different formations of musicians, like five people playing turtle shells and people behind them blowing their horns. A lot of these fascinating instruments I’ve never seen or even heard of before. But they all derive from nature like seashells, even turtle shells, different flutes, clay flutes, etc.
Q: What do you want viewers to take away from the “Voices Rising” series? A:
All the songs were written for the movie. Every lyric. Every instrument you hear is custom for the movie. The way you hear the songs play in the movie. It’s not like you hear a snippet here and there. It’s the whole song. We captured that whole process of how I went to Mexico. … When I went to Mexico, I didn’t have a movie to work on. We just had a script. I invited artists to come to the studio. We were sitting down talking about certain scenes and started writing the songs. I got to know the artists and their backgrounds. I learned about the Mexican musical scene. We have that whole process filmed and documented. The songs basically came from scratch to fully fleshed songs in the movie.