The Woman King

The Woman King (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2022 film of the same name, released on September 16, 2022 by Milan Records. The album featured mostly original score composed by Terence Blanchard, who produced a "heavy orchestral scores" mimicking that of the historical epics and African instruments that tune with the film's setting. The original song "Keep Rising" performed by Jessy Wilson and Angélique Kidjo released as a single on September 9, 2022. Development The film marked Blanchard's first collaboration with Prince-Bythewood on her first film Love & Basketball (2000) and the television shows Shots Fired and Swagger. Speaking to GoldDerby magazine, Blanchard said "The first thing that I thought of was a scene after the battle, where they’re coming back to the kingdom – that’s actually where I started scoring the film". He scored the opening sequences, featuring a string orchestra and regional instruments including kalimba and kora, where "the beauty and the pageantry of this kingdom, that sets up everything else. So, for me, the music had to have that warm, familiar kind of resonance to it. I wanted to make it feel like this is a neighborhood that anybody would want to be a part of." He had discussed about using African instruments to score the film, which he had a "lot of pushback as he said "while I thought it was appropriate to have African instruments I didn’t want to just assume or implicate that people of color never played in orchestras". He did not want to "cheat the film by not having the full palette of colors to help tell the story". Hence Prince-Bythewood agreed Blanchard to use the orchestra to perform the score in the film. He referred using sweeping orchestral scores as did earlier in Braveheart and Gladiator (2000). Blanchard quoted the dialogue, "There’s an evil that they don’t know is coming", which refers to the encroaching slave trade, and added "that is the juxtaposition of the music [...] Them walking to the kingdom and milling around — versus Nanisca, who’s outside the kingdom and sees the reality of what’s going on. There’s a broad distinction between the two." He wanted to contrast and complement the spiritual and emotional vulnerability through the music.