The Luke Cage soundtrack played an integral part in the success of the series. The original score, created by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, was recorded with a 30 piece orchestra. Younge and Muhammad’s cinematic approach allowed each episode feel sonically and emotionally dynamic. Along with the character’s own voice, their distinct musical tone brought an added level of three dimensionality to the series.
The soundtrack, a whopping 54 tracks, is now available to download on iTunes and stream via Apple Music. It’s also available to purchase from Mondo on Vinyl and the outside art is super cool. Take a look:
The soundtrack includes the Luke Cage theme song all the records performed at Cottonmouth’s club, Harlem Paradise. There’s countless tracks under two-minutes that you may recognize from various fight scenes. There are multiple records dedicated to each main character -- Pop, Diamondback, Cottonmouth, Claire, Misty and Shades.
Younge explained during an interview with Watchloud how he built a specific musical voice to represent each character.
“For Luke we wanted the voice to be one of my favorite singers Loren Oden, she’s on all of my albums. So whenever you see something going on with Luke you hear her as his inner voice,” Younge said. “With [villain] Cottonmouth, when he was young he would play the Rhodes. So we wanted the Rhodes to be his voice. Whenever you hear The Rhodes it feels soulful and Cottonmouth is a soulful dude. He’s like a modern Nino Brown and we wanted the Rhodes to be his sound. But he’s a dark character so we wanted it to sound dark as well. The kind of soul that Cottonmouth has is a little different.”
The Luke Cage soundtrack is groundbreaking for a TV series, let alone a comic adaptation. Do Younge and Muhammad’s work could set a new industry standard? Let us know in the comments below!
