Adopting an ethnomusicological approach to Black Panther: The Album prompts us to look beyond the lyrics and ask: what does the sound of this proudly Black musical project tell us about current and future pan-African solidarity? My decision to prioritise sound is influenced by an ‘aural turn’ occurring within anthropology, particularly in the sub-branch of ethnomusicology, that acknowledges the importance of music and soundscapes in social processes of meaning-making. Sounds can “render audible dimensions of (a) worldview inaccessible to verbal language alone” (Chapman 2008, p.157). These striking differences between text and sound in the music allow the album to simultaneously convey quite diverse experiences of Blackness.

Yet, this tension between heroic Africa and troubled diaspora is not manifest in the same way on the level of sound. Their two voices struggle for control until a final resolution is sought in the closing tracks. Like the storyline of the film, the lyrics of Black Panther: The Album narrate two opposing representations of African identity, T’Challa and Killmonger. I wish to turn now to Black Panther: The Album (2018), a Marvel commissioned collaborative album (separate from the film’s official score) curated by Pulitzer-Prize and Grammy award winning American rap artist, Kendrick Lamar. However, I argue that there is something profoundly different occurring on the level of music. Thus, colonial representations are not transcended in Black Panther, just refigured in an all-Black setting. Hailing from Oakland, California, Killmonger represents an African-American identity that is alienated, disenfranchised, and corrupted.

Directly opposing T’Challa and the utopian Wakanda is Killmonger, the film’s antagonist. Wakanda and its people represent an unbroken chain of Black excellence that never got interrupted by colonialism, with King T’Challa embodying an African identity that is powerful, emancipatory and good. However, in its endeavor to represent and re-imagine Black identities, the film constructs a problematic duality of Black experience.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Black Panther (2018) director Ryan Coogler notes, “We were making a film about what it means to be African… It was a spirit that we all brought to it, regardless of heritage.” Together, Coogler and his team created a utopian vision of pan-African solidarity.

Black panther theme song language