Black Panther: The Album Review

Ryan Coogler asked Kendrick Lamar for a few songs for Black Panther. Lamar saw an early cut of the film and made a whole album instead, started with his producer Sounwave on tour and finished with a long list of collaborators on a tighter deadline than any of his own records. It came out on 9 February 2018, a week before the film, and went to number one on the Billboard 200.

The singles carry it. All the Stars, with SZA, is the one the film kept, and it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song; King's Dead, with Jay Rock, Future and James Blake, won the Grammy for Best Rap Performance; Pray for Me pairs Lamar with the Weeknd. Around them Lamar keeps turning up in other people's songs, a verse here and a hook there, and the whole thing sounds like one project rather than a compilation.

Critics called it a milestone for film soundtracks, and some found it weaker than Lamar's own albums, which is fair: a few of the guest-led tracks are there to fill the brief rather than because they have anything to say. At fifty minutes it rarely drags, and its best half-dozen songs are as good as any soundtrack has managed in years.