Marvel Reveals Official Details of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Black Panther’ Concept Album

Marvel Studios and TDE Entertainment have just dropped the official details for rapper Kendrick Lamar‘s upcoming album inspired by Marvel’s Black Panther. The announcement comes right on the heels of the album’s first single, “All The Stars”, which was released today. You can watch the video for “All The Stars” here, and get the details of Black Panther: The Album in Marvel’s official press release, below:

Internationally-celebrated Grammy® Award–winning global superstar Kendrick Lamar and Billboard Magazine’s Executive of the Year, Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, are set to curate and produce “Black Panther: The Album.” The album will feature music from and inspired by Marvel Studios’ Black Panther film including the lead single, “All The Stars,” featuring Kendrick Lamar and label mate SZA, produced by Sounwave.

Lamar and Tiffith will collaborate with Coogler directly in the creation of music specific to the needs of the film. This will mark the first time that Lamar, whom Rolling Stone dubbed “the greatest rapper alive,” will write, produce, perform and curate for a major motion picture.

This collaboration represents the first time in Marvel Cinematic Universe history that Marvel Studios will integrate multiple original recordings created specifically for the film.

Lamar was hand-picked by Coogler for this first film music collaboration. “I am honored to be working with such an incredible artist whose work has been so inspirational, and whose artistic themes align with those we explore in the film. I can’t wait for the world to hear what Kendrick and TDE have in store,” said Coogler.

As you can see, this is a unique fusion of rap concept album and film soundtrack, which will be a milestone first for both Lamar and Marvel Studios.

While it’s definitely an interesting prospect, there will be a fair number of comic book movie fans who point to Lamar’s vocals on the track “It’s On Again” from the end credits of Amazing Spider-Man 2 as an example of where rap and comic book movies maybe didn’t mix so well. However, director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) seems to be a director who knows implicitly what kind of cinematic world he wants to build, so we have a fair amount of trust that the results of the collaboration are going to be good. Marvel will accept no less.

Avengers: Infinity War opens in theaters on May 4, 2018. Other upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movies include Black Panther on February 16, 2018, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, 2018, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.