Wakanda Composer Forever Works With ‘Musical Archaeologists’ To Make Music Of The Namor People [Exclusive]

In the /Film interview with Ludwig Göransson, the composer describes in detail the type of research he did when making music for Namor and the underwater kingdom of Talokan:

“It was really interesting because I didn’t know much about that culture and that music, and obviously, we all know that it was removed, it was forcibly removed hundreds of years ago. That’s why I was like, ‘Okay, well, we have to go to Mexico for trying to see how we can reimagine the sound.’ So I went to Mexico and connected with these amazing musical archaeologists who are experts in this field — they’ve been working their whole lives trying to reimagine what it might sound like.”

The eradication of Mesoamerican musical and artistic culture led Göransson to his research, which took on a whole new angle of archaeological investigation. Instruments found in graves and a study of how they were used shows the composer how they might have sounded, along with the notes played:

“They’ve found some instruments in some graves. By looking at the instrument, the flute – they can see in the flute hole which hole was the most used, and you can imagine, ‘Okay, well. , this interval is probably played a lot.’ Many of the instruments are from nature… It’s so inspiring to hear all the sounds I’ve never heard before and definitely haven’t heard in a film before.”

At nearly every level of film production, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” feels like a film ingrained in culture and history. The dedication to keeping the backgrounds and characters rooted in historical authenticity and accuracy is commendable. It will be interesting to see how it all plays into the film’s story when it releases on November 11.