American rapper, Shawn ‘Jay Z’ Carter paid tribute to Nigerian music icon, Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti by including his song in the soundtrack of a new Netflix movie ‘The Harder They Fall’.
Jay Z produced the Western, which stars Idris Elba, Regina King, Jonathan Majors, Delroy Lindo, among others.
The Grammy award-winning rapper also curated the soundtrack for the movie.
The soundtrack highlights black music from across the world, and Fela’s record ‘Let’s Start’ from 1971 ‘Live’ album is in the project.
The record was also used in one of the trailers for the movie.
Jay Z said Fela’s songs represented black people, so he included one of them in the soundtrack.
“The idea of adding those landscapes to these images is super interesting. If you think about the time when Western was super popular and was the only thing on TV, it was influencing the world,” the hip-hop mogul said in an interview at the London screening of the movie.
“So you had people in Jamaica dress up as Cowboys because these are images they had seen on TV.
“So there is actual that place that exists over Western music and we have a few of those.
“Just that juxtaposition of how art influences life and life influences culture was just interesting to us, and Fela Kuti was so hard it was just the best trailer, music of all time.
“That’s what I listen to in the house, Jeymes (Samuel)-director of the movie- as well; that’s what we listen to when we kicking it. So we just put the things that we really love. Cause it’s magic and magic going work.”