Hot on the heels of the news that Rihanna would be releasing new music for the soundtrack to the upcoming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the director of the film, Ryan Coogler has spoken publicly to The Hollywood Reporter for the first time about what the artist will be bringing to the movie.
Rihanna hasn't released new solo music for six years, and her album "Anti" was the last full-length release back in 2016, but Marvel announced, out of the blue, that she would be involved with the soundtrack by releasing a short video clip that showed a Wakanda Forever emblem turning into her 'R' logo. She also shared a video via Twitter with the song's release date.
On the night of the movie's worldwide premiere, Coogler said, when looking for artists to contribute music to the soundtrack following the gangbusting success of Kendrick Lamar's input to the original soundtrack, that they were 'looking for somebody who could embody it thematically'. Rihanna was his number one choice for the role. “Rihanna, man, we knew she was at a point in her life as well where she was focusing on different things — focused on business, motherhood, which is a big theme in our film," he said. "We were holding out hope that maybe it could work out, and boy did it for this song. I can't wait for people to hear it."
Coogler also spoke of the importance of consulting the late Chadwick Boseman's family and friends, during the rewriting of the film's script, following the actor's untimely passing. “Chadwick had people who were in his life creatively, as well as family, and we were in close contact with those people, very close specifically with his wife, Simone, and his creative partner Logan Coles," said Coogler. “We were staying tapped in with them as much as we could, and it gave us the space to create, but obviously we were seeking out their opinion all the time. We’re looking forward to sharing it with everybody.”
Castmembers Danai Gurira and Angela Bassett also spoke of the emotion they felt when returning to set, and seeing the Wakandan throne sitting empty, a place Boseman had sat four years prior. “I hadn’t seen that throne since we had lost him, so the last time I had seen that throne he had been sitting in it,” Gurira said. “We did with our full hearts, our full effort and really seeking to honor our brother. We can just hope and pray that it’s received that way and that people have an experience with it as a result of that.”
Bassett added that it was "daunting" to be the one to have to fill the throne, as T'Challa's mother, Queen Ramonda, before revealing the cast had visited Boseman's final resting place. “We were able to do that to give love and feel his spirit and stand there with him before we did one frame of anything,” Bassett said. “That was such an important grounding for us because, as you can imagine, emotion was all over the place. People are on the verge — his on-screen sister, his love, his general, all of us. I’m getting goosebumps now. We were on the verge of tears, of ‘How are we going to do this, go on without him?'"
"Lift Me Up" by Rihanna will be released on October 28. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be released in theaters on November 11. You can see the latest teaser below: