(AllHipHop News) Black Panther hits theaters tonight. The cast of the highly anticipated Marvel production has been making the media rounds to promote the movie.
Michael B. Jordan appears in the film as Erik “Killmonger” Stevens, the main antagonist. During an interview with Beats 1’s Ebro Darden, the New Jersey native talked about using music by Tupac Shakur to prepare for the character.
“I was listening to a lot of Pac,” revealed Jordan. “And honestly just spending a lot of time by myself you know I’m saying. This cat you know Killmonger had everything kind of taken away from him. He was kind of forced to be in isolation with this thing he knew but didn’t have anybody to really talk to about it and couldn’t really get there.”
The 31-year-old actor continued, “So for me to try to build up that frustration or what it feels like to have that and not be able to say nothing, but just also I feel like certain characters’ background directly affects their agenda, where they’re going with what they want.”
Travis Scott was another Hip Hop artist that inspired Jordan’s performance in Black Panther. He also discussed listening to speeches by Huey P. Newton, Fred Hampton, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X.
“I’m not saying just because you’re pro-black doesn’t mean your ‘anti’ anything,” said Jordan. “So I needed to get in a certain mind-state of how my character was feeling so I can get everybody else to know how he feels. I needed that and for me I was studying Magneto. For me, as an artist, the inspiration comes in all forms whether it be fictional or nonfiction. So it’s something that – yeah, I was kind of a little bit all over the place.”
Black Panther: The Album includes contributions from Travis Scott, Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz, Khalid, Swae Lee, Vince Staples, Ab-Soul, Anderson .Paak, James Blake, Jay Rock, Future, The Weeknd, and more. But which record from the soundtrack is Michael B. Jordan’s favorite?
“I’m going to go with [SOB X RBE’s] ‘Paramedic!’ because that’s one of Killmonger’s joints,” offered Jordan.