When you aren’t fearing for the safety of these two Black men on the open road, you’re marveling at how eagerly these mega artists take to being music theory students while steeping themselves in the distinct sonic flavors of each region they pass through. Rather than dream up a new version of Key’s jingle from the cosseted isolation of an LA studio, Bowers and Dahi climbed into a drop-top Mustang and set off on a six-city listening tour – zigzagging from the midwest to the deep south and back to the Bay Area. There’s something about the American character, the American personality that seems to want to say that there can only be one song.” “In America, people don’t fully realize that there were a whole bunch of songs that were being considered as the national anthem,” adds Nicks. “But the thing too, Ryan, is it was the same weekend as Puerto Rican independence,” says Dahi, noting the reggaeton beats echoing around the city as well. And they weren’t just playing the same song they were playing the same 30-second loop of Empire State of Mind.” “We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and they had these like 360-degree photo booths. “It’s a trip how many songs just New York has,” the Black Panther director tells the Guardian over a Zoom call with his collaborators earlier this week. In fact, Ryan Coogler, an executive producer on this film, was reminded of the sheer glut of pop anthems that speak to the American experience while premiering this 97-minute thought exercise at the Tribeca film festival. Nicks, the pensive director behind a trilogy of docs exploring institutions in his Oakland home town, enlists the help of two expert ears: the jazz pianist Kris Bowers, who composed the scores for Bridgerton, Green Book and other screen gems and DJ Dahi, the hip-hop producer behind Kendrick Lamar, Big Sean and more chart toppers. It got Peter Nicks thinking: “If you could imagine an anthem for today, what would that be and how would you do it?” That’s the hand-on-heart question at the center of Anthem, a Hulu documentary from Nicks on the journey to make a fight song that reflects the country’s tortured soul. Without school drills or Whitney Houston or the constant drumbeat of patriotism, likely, the Banner reverts to scribbles on a page decades ago. It took a century and an act of Congress for the Star-Spangled Banner to become the American standard, which would seem proof of how catchy it isn’t.
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