‘The Harder They Fall’ Soundtrack Is So Good Because It Was Written Into the Script

It won’t come as a surprise to those who know director Jeymes Samuel that The Harder They Fall soundtrack is absolute fire.

Samuel, whose movie The Harder They Fall began streaming on Netflix today, is a singer-songwriter and music producer also known by his stage name The Bullitts whose work includes supervising the music for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Plus, he’s Seal’s younger brother. Yes, that Seal. Clearly, this is a family blessed with musical talent. Beyond that, Samuel collaborated with none other than rapper Jay-Z, who serves as an executive producer on the film. In other words, it would be a shock if The Harder They Fall soundtrack didn’t slap.

Still, the music in this new-school western film goes far beyond just a killer tracklist (which you can find listed below). Samuel times all of his needle drops perfectly, down to the frame, and the result feels like at times like an epic, 137-minute long music video. With every scene change, there’s a new banger. If you’re watching the movie on Netflix with the captions on, the song title is helpfully provided, as if Samuel knows you’re going to want to look up these beats for later. And each song choice enhances the story—when Zazie Beetz rides alone into clear and present danger, Fatoumata Diawara and Lauryn Hill’s “Black Woman” begins to play.

All of this is by design. In an interview for The Harder They Fall press notes, cinematographer Mihai Malaimare described the way Samuel incorporated the soundtrack from the very beginning of the filmmaking process.

“The script was full of music notes,” Malaimare said. “Every time we watched dailies together, we listened to the music. Every meeting had some sort of music reference. Music is such a big part of the process for Jeymes, the same way still images are for me. Both image and music have an amazing quality of communicating emotions.”

Zazie Beetz, who plays a singer named after the famed star-route mail carrier Stagecoach Mary, elaborated on those music notes in the script, saying that not only were the songs written in the script, but also “timed out with the dialogue and camera movement, and so the beat is the pace of this movie,” Beetz said. “With [Samuel’s] supreme creativity, he creates a new genre and type of film through the incorporation of music.”

For Jay-Z, who first worked with Samuel on The Great Gatsby, witnessing the influence that hip hop had on The Harder They Fall was a bit of a full-circle moment.

“You don’t think of how westerns influenced the world,” the producer said in an interview for the press notes. “It was the only thing on TV. You can see the reach when people in Jamaica were dressed in full western cowboy regalia. The westerns influenced the musicians of the time and now musicians are influencing the genre. Now, this music is informing the film and the western. It’s the full circle.”

The Harder They Fall soundtrack is now available to purchase and stream on all major music platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, and more. You can find out more about where to listen to the album here, and find The Harder They Fall soundtrack tracklist below.

THE HARDER THEY FALL SOUNDTRACK TRACKLIST:

1. “Lightnin’ With The Blam Blams (Skit)” by Edi Gathegi & R.J. Cyler
2. “The Harder They Fall” by Koffee
3. “Guns Go Bang” Kid Cudi & Jay-Z
4. “Better Than Gold” by Barrington Levy
5. “Black Woman” by Fatoumata Diawara & Ms. Lauryn Hill
6. “Wednesday’s Child” by Alice Smith
7. “Blackskin Mile” by CeeLo Green
8. “Ain’t No Better” Love by Seal
9. “We Ain’t No Nincompoop (Skit)” by LaKeith Stanfield & Regina King
10. “King Kong Riddim [feat. BackRoad Gee]” by JAY-Z, Jadakiss, & Conway The Machine
11. “We Go Harder” by Laura Mvula & Mayra Andrade
12. “Is The Devil Dead? (Skit)” by Zazie Beetz & Jonathan Majors
13. “No Turning Around” by Jeymes Samuel
14. “Three And Thirty Years” by Pretty Yende

Watch The Harder They Fall on Netflix