Quentin Tarantino has a long history of dropping popular music into his films, but "Django Unchained" is his first to feature original songs written expressly for his film. The movie's soundtrack features original compositions from the likes of Rick Ross and John Legend alongside vintage tracks from Tupac, James Brown and many more.
Rick Ross's contribution, "100 Black Coffins," hit the web this week. The Big Bawse delivers a typically Ross'ian performance here, lush, smokey vocals over a thundering beat that we're led to believe was produced by Jamie Foxx, but sounds quite a bit like a Lex Luger joint.
In press materials, Tarantino explained the thinking that went into the soundtrack:
I want to thank all the artists who contributed original songs (a first for me) to the picture. Most of these contributions came out of the artists' own inspiration and their illustration of the film's soul is invaluable ... In addition to the new original songs I am also using a lot of older recordings on the soundtrack—many of which came from my personal vinyl collection. Instead of having the record companies give me new digitally cleaned up versions of these recordings from the 60's and 70's, I wanted to use the vinyl I've been listening to for years— complete with all the pops and cracks. I even kept the sound of the needle being put down on the record. Basically because I wanted people's experience to be the same as mine when they hear this soundtrack for the first time.
Listen above and let us know what you think. Here's the full tracklist, notably missing Frank Ocean:
1. Winged
2. Django (Main Theme) - Luis Bacalov, Rocky Roberts
3. The Braying Mule - Ennio Morricone
4. In That Case, Django, After You...
5. Lo Chiamavano King (His Name Is King) - Luis Bacalov, Edda Dell'orso
6. Freedom - Anthony Hamilton & Elayna Boynton
7. Five-Thousand-Dollar Nigga's And Gummy Mouth Bitches
8. La Corsa (2nd Version) - Luis Bacalov
9. Sneaky Schultz and the Demise of Sharp
10. I Got a Name - Jim Croce
11. I Giorni Dell'ira - Riz Ortolani
12. 100 Black Coffins - Rick Ross
13. Nicaragua - Jerry Goldsmith featuring Pat Metheny
14. Hildi's Hot Box
15. Sister Sara's Theme - Ennio Morricone
16. Ancora Qui - Ennio Morricone and Elsa
17. Unchained (The Payback/Untouchable) - James Brown and 2Pac
18. Who Did That To You? - John Legend
19. Too Old to Die Young - Brother Edge
20. Stephen The Poker Player
21. Un Monumento - Ennio Morricone
22. Six Shots Two Guns
23. Trinity (Titoli) - Annibale E i Cantori Moderni