It makes sense that Kendrick Lamar is recording a new, original track for Marvel’s upcoming Black Panther movie. He does, after all, also have royalty inside his DNA.
Lamar teased his work on Black Panther, the 2018 Marvel movie directed by Fruitvale Station and Creed’s Ryan Coogler, in a new music video for “LOVE,” above. It’s a quick snippet found smack-dab in the middle of the video; if you don’t want to watch the entire video, we clipped the scene, which can be viewed in the GIF below.
Lamar’s participation in Black Panther isn’t surprising to those who attended Marvel’s San Diego Comic-Con Hall H panel earlier this year. The exclusive clip that Marvel brought along for fans included a trailer set to Lamar’s “DNA,” a popular song off his most recent album, Damn. Both fans in attendance and Twitter users lit up with excitement over the inclusion of Lamar’s inspiring anthem in one of Marvel’s most anticipated movies.
Black Panther’s connection to Lamar’s work goes beyond the artist’s commercial and critical success. Both Coogler and actor Chadwick Boseman (who plays Black Panther in the film) said they felt a personal attachment to “DNA,” leading to its appearance in the trailer.
“The lyrics are amazing — a lot of Kendrick's are," Coogler told the Los Angeles Times in July. "It's actually oddly literal for our trailer's purposes — and I think a lot of the cultural things we're dealing with in Wakanda are in the zeitgeist in the African American community.”
Much like how Lamar’s “DNA” is about rising up and standing proud in an oppressive society, Black Panther will examine how a kingdom could have progressed into greatness if it hadn’t been conquered.
“You're talking about a world that would exist if the Egyptians were never conquered, if Sumeria was never conquered and was allowed to progress — that's what Wakanda is,” Boseman told the Times.
We haven’t received any hints as to what Lamar’s new song for Black Panther will sound like, but considering the music he’s known for and the theme of Black Panther, it’s not too far of a stretch to expect another generational anthem.
Black Panther will be released on Feb. 16, 2018.
