There's a lot more to the music of 'Black Panther' than you think

Excited for Black Panther? So are we. Which is why we're rolling out obsessive coverage with Black Panther Week.

There's a small detail in the first Black Panther trailer you might have missed.

It starts about a minute in, when King T'Challa drops down onto unsuspecting militants. It has nothing to do with the footage, but everything to do with the music, when the track shifts from typical Marvel fanfare to an altered version of Vince Staples' hit single "BagBak."

You can hear some of the main lyrics pepper through the dialogue and sound effects, but perhaps the most important ones are the ones that aren't there.

"BagBak" is by far one of Staples' most politically pointed singles. It's a brash, three-minute long protest track that tackles numerous issues of race, released just weeks before President Trump officially took office. And the exact snippet of the song used in the the trailer is particularly cutting, if not defiant. Listen for yourself below. Though, a fair warning, the audio is quite explicit.

It's no coincidence that this was the snippet director Ryan Coogler used for the first trailer of a film about a black superhero. In fact, it's the kind of thing Coogler has come to specialize in, using music in film to not only accent the narrative, but to enhance it. In Black Panther, this is everywhere. From its soundtrack, to the music chosen for its trailers, to the score of the film, the sound of Wakanda adds nearly as much as the visuals itself.

It's the same kind of thing that Coogler did with Creed. Need I remind you of that scene where Adonis Creed runs along an armada of street bikes to a cancer-torn Rocky, all while a fusion of triumphant brass horns and Philadelphia-bred rap blares in the background? Coogler did it in Fruitvale Station as well, using the sound of a zooming BART train as an ominous harbinger for the film's tragic ending.

The same thing carries on into Black Panther, which also just so happens to have a soundtrack by Kendrick Lamar. It's used in the film sparingly, but if you go back and listen to it, it's almost eerie how well it mirrors the film's narrative. It's impressive too, when you consider the fact that Lamar only saw about half the film hopping in a booth to record the album. (A comical aside: Coogler notes, specifically, that Lamar's work was fueled by "hella snacks.")

Take the album's first track, "Black Panther," for example. It features Kendrick rapping as T'Challa about his new found sense of responsibility once assuming the role as king. The song, and its haunting piano riff, highlights an internal monologue that becomes the moral struggle of T'Challa throughout the movie.

What do you stand for? Are you a activist? What are your city plans for? Are you a accident? Are you just in the way? Your native tongue contradictin' what your body language say Are you a king or you jokin'? Are you a king or you posin'? Are you a king or you smokin' bud rocks to keep you open?

"Paramedic!" works similarly for the film's villain, Killmonger, just in a different way. Its distinct melody is a throwback to the style of music that ruled Oakland, and the entire Bay Area, in the early 2000s. It became known as Hyphy Music, and its funky, upbeat, brassy sound became a bit of pride chip for a part of the country that, at that time, felt overlooked (at least, culturally).

To give you a sense of what it sounded like, listen to this:

Now listen to this, starting at 0:21.

Sound similar, no? "Paramedic!" sounds almost identical to the type of music any teen growing up in the depths of Oakland would have listened to. And it's this type of detail hidden in the seams of the tale of Black Panther that make it so complete.

And it's not just on the soundtrack. Composer Ludwig Goransson applied the same kind of care to the score, too. In a video he did with Genius, Goransson discussed how he flew to Africa to meet Baaba Maal, a grammy-nominated Senegalese musician, and follow him on tour, all in inspiration for the score of the film. Maal inspired things like the ceremonial outcall in the beginning of the movie, and how Goransson used an instrument called the "talking drum" to speak the word "T'Challa" throughout the theme that plays whenever he's on screen.

All of this is easy to miss, but important to the story nonetheless. If you didn't notice it, it's worth revisiting — especially if that means watching Black Panther again.