Black Panther: Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler Rihanna singing ‘Lift Me Up’ in the MCU movie: ‘Motherhood is a major theme of this film’

Here, the film’s director Ryan Coogler opened up about how he convinced multiple Grammy Award winner Rihanna for solo music return with his upcoming film. Riri is making a comeback with Lift Me Up, which the first piece of original music that Rihanna has released since 2016. She went on a hiatus in 2018. The song is a part of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack.

“I can’ take solo credit for that,” Ryan said. “We have an incredible composer, Ludwig Göransson, who is also a music producer, who has got a great reputation. You know, he made This Is America with Childish Gambino. So Ludwig was a major factor. Big thanks to Jay Brown at Roc Nation and Jay-Z, who is a friend, who helped make the connection,” he added.

Ryan then also praised Rihana and opened up about what her music means to the film. He said, “Look, Rihanna has given us a whole career, a whole catalogue of music, and now she has given us make-up and clothing and the world would understand if she hung up her mic. And I completely understand, because I love her music so much, I feel like she’s given us all that you could ask for. But the truth is, we were looking for a great artist who could tell the story of the film, and embrace the themes of the film and present them to the audience in a different packaging. That’s what Kendrick (Lamar) did for us so beautifully with the first film.”

Further on, Ryan spoke about how the song’s central theme is motherhood with Rihhana embracing motherhood herself recently. He shared, “This film is different. It made sense that it would be a woman, it made sense that it could be someone who could speak to, not necessarily the words, but the feelings of motherhood because that’s the major theme of this film. And it timed up, that she was in that space in her life. And she was open and it was really the trailer that, when she saw the performances that everybody was putting in the trailer, that was what put her over the edge and she said, ‘Hey, I wanna see this film, I wanna see if I can figure this out’.”

Ryan then also opened up about how difficult it was to go ahead with the film without the film’s lead Chadwick Boseman after his untimely death, and how the music of the film is an ode to the late actor. Giving details on the music process of the film, he said, “We collaborated with this incredible singer Tems. And, she and I wrote the words, Ludwig made the music. But truthfully, the music was recorded on three different continents. Some of it was recorded from the first Black Panther when Ludwig was in Senegal. So, it came together in a lot of different ways. And I am super happy with it and feel super thankful. But the truth is, once she played us the record, she said straight up, ‘I did this for Chad. And so, it was him, man.”

There’s no better way to pay tribute to Chadwick than Rihanna’s music, according to Ryan. “I am just really thankful that Rihanna was the latest gift to join the family, and can’t wait for people to see how it is used in the film.”