Small Axe (soundtrack)

Did You Know?

• Jack Oxford of Clash wrote that the record can stand alone as a separate, thought-provoking piece of art.
• The soundtrack includes spoken word poetry by Linton Kwesi Johnson.

Background

McQueen worked with music supervisor Ed Bailie to select contemporary American black and Jamaican artists such as Al Green and Toots and the Maytals. The music was intended to make people feel vulnerable and to change how sound waves and unstructured music can affect a being, allowing people to feel whole. McQueen's familial influence on various genres included Jim Reeves' baritone music in the short films Mangrove and Red, White and Blue, with calypso, reggae and blues also serving as major influences on the soundtrack.

Michael Kiwanuka contributed a cover of Nina Simone's "To Be Young, Gifted and Black"; McQueen, familiar with Kiwanuka's work, considered the song his version of a music box being opened, noting that the original had "a rallying call, it has a galvanising message to it that people have the capacity to do anything" and that Kiwanuka's simpler version was a perfect fit. Tiana Major9 performed a cover of Janet Kay's "Silly Games"; McQueen stated that during a phone conversation, Tiana told him about her West Indies background and how she wanted to approach the song as it was a huge anthem.

Mica Levi composed the original score for the series, using an arrangement of wooden instruments to represent the West Indian background for Mangrove. McQueen noted that the use of guitars and steel drums, basically made from American oil barrels, had to be organic and have human contact. Al Green's cover of the Bee Gees' "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" was used for a moment between John Boyega's character and the father in Red, White and Blue; McQueen loved the tune because for the Bee Gees it represented the idea of union, and in the short film the father and son are trying to mend their relationship.

In Lovers Rock, the energetic song "Kunta Kinte" by the Revolutionaries went off "like a dog whistle" when McQueen listened to it. Junior English's "After Tonight" was considered McQueen's favorite as it was "so romantic". McQueen felt that Lovers Rock was made for the women and had no space for the female characters, as at the time it was more reggae versions. "Silly Games" was outlined in the script of the film, and McQueen wanted to capture the nature of party dwellers reaching for the notes of Kay's dancing filler well past the song's closing credits, as part of the dynamic setup of that sequence.