‘This is My Home’: “Black Panther” (2018) and Its Revolutionary Themes

Dr. Chaturvedi opened one of his lectures playing a contemporary song from the movie Black Panther (2018) and its accompanying album, “Black Panther: The Album.” Chaturvedi argued that the movie and, more specifically, the song “Pray for Me” portrays this revolutionary figure rising to prominence and serving as a voice for their respective people, a “hero,” per se. Rightly so, the movie and album both maintain a sort of colonial-revolutionary anecdote which Chaturvedi related to his course material like Savarkar and his revolutionary ideas against British colonization.

Marvel’s Black Panther is based mostly on the colonization and enslavement of Africans and their culture throughout the ages. In the movie, an isolationist country, Wakanda, is taken over by a once-exiled Erik Killmonger because he sees good in helping his oppressed people across the globe. T’Challa, the rightful king of Wakanda, sees the way to help his people is to stay out of the global conflict as the country always had. But, in order to do this, T’challa has to fight to get the radical out of his chair and away from rule. Here we see two opposing figures standing up for the same cause. The antagonist and protagonist views share the vision of a figure rising up to lead their people against tyranny on their people.

T’challa walks to reclaim his throne against radical revolutionary Killmonger.

The album that was released a week prior to the movie, “Black Panther: The Album” has no shortage of revolutionary iconography either– coming mostly from artist Kendrick Lamar, the most prominent in the all African-American lineup of artists on the album. Kendrick Lamar, himself, has been known as a modern revolutionary in his music throughout his career— attacking society’s oppressive values and their effects towards the African- American community in his verses. These sentiments don’t let up throughout the whole album especially in tracks like the aforementioned “Pray for Me”, premiere track “Black Panther”, and minorly in tracks like “All the Stars” and “Paramedic!”

In the first song of the album “Black Panther,” Kendrick Lamar assumes the title of “king” of his “city,” of the “ghettos,” of the “bloodshed,” of the “forsaken,” and so on and so forth. He also goes on to accept the “responsibilities” that assuming kingdom over such a domain entails. The song builds up this same general format as it culminates in the final line “I am T’challa,” an overall ending proclamation that he is king of these oppressed peoples and he will lead them for better or worse.

In “paramedic!” however, Kendrick takes to the antagonistic side of the theme in Black panther ad-libbing “I am Killmonger… this is my home… northern California.” Here we see Kendrick still standing up for his land, identity, people, and his reality in stating his ownership of himself and his home. We don’t see him necessarily militarizing an isolationist state with highly dangerous weapons as Killmonger does in the movie. What the audience is meant to take away from this and what was displayed in “Black Panther” (song) is the clinging to revolutionary iconography for change, the fact that Lamar identifies with either side of conflict at different points during the album just shows to what extent Kendrick is willing to do what he has to in order to make change actually happen.

T’challa (left) and Killmonger (right) fight in a challenge for the throne. [Credit to Marvel, Entertainment Weekly]

     You can dissect the pieces of the Black Panther movie and album to bits about the creators’ distaste for “colonizers” and the resent that director Ryan Coogler sees for the imposition of the African American people throughout history. But the fact that these pieces were made in the first place, giving a minority a forefront, a voice, and a hero (for once) is enough to show just how much the producers of the “Black Panther” brand are dedicated to a revolution in societies current values, it’s a form of rebelling against societies usual rules as icons like Savarkar, Gandhi, and even MLK had done in their respective ways as well.