Wow. Kendrick Lamar and Top Dawg Entertainment have done it again. He’s proven time and time again he’s arguably the best current hip-hop artist at crafting albums, but this time around he’s excelled not only at crafting his own album, but shows that he, along with Anthony "Top Dawg" Fiffith, are incredible album curators. When we heard Kendrick was curating and producing the soundtrack album for Marvel’s Black Panther movie we knew it was going to be amazing…. but this is just next level.
Every song is incredible and Kendrick really couldn’t have put together a better group of artists for this special project. Kendrick is only credited on five songs, but appears across the whole project adding the perfect compliment to each collaborator. Some songs go HARD, while others are the perfect soulful balance.
The film's director Ryan Coogler has been a Kendrick fan for years and finally tracked him down to have a conversation about the movie. He said Kendrick “he came in and watched quite a bit of the movie, and the next thing I know, they were booking a studio and they were going at it.” They then worked on the album while on the DAMN. tour, and did not disappoint.
We’ve never heard an movie soundtrack this good and are very excited to see the movie now. It’s rare for even the best movie soundtracks to have much longevity but this just feels like a really good album that we’ll undoubtedly be coming to for a long time to come. We hope this has other movie soundtracks stepping up their game. Enjoy!