Coogler, who goes by the stage name OG DAYV, opens up to TooFab about creating the track “Troubled Waters” with composer Ludwig Göransson, and what it’s been like to work alongside his famed director brother as he’s become a household name.
For Noah Coogler, Sinners afforded him the opportunity to try something new.
Noah, who goes by the rap name OG DAYV, has made his fair share of music over the years — much of which has appeared on the soundtracks for his famed director brother Ryan Coogler‘s hit films — but he wasn’t necessarily expecting a feature this time around.
“I didn’t know I would be on the soundtrack until a couple weeks ago. I knew that they were working on it last year over the summer while they were filming in New Orleans, and so I foolishly kind of assumed that, ‘Oh, you know, I won’t be a part of this one.’ And that’s OK, because I haven’t been on every single project. And so when Serena and Ludwig [Göransson] reached out about contributing music, I was like, ‘Oh, for sure,'” Noah told TooFab of how he ended up on the soundtrack. “It was a pleasant surprise for sure. And I was ready for it.”
Collaborating with a star in his own right, composer Ludwig Göransson and his wife Serena, who have become the musical right hand for Ryan across his filmography, “Troubled Waters” gave Noah the chance to put his singing chops on display.
“They sent over some instrumentation and asked me to just lay down a reference to kind of give them an idea of what I was thinking,” he explained. “And when I sent the reference back, they hit me back like, ‘Hey, fly your ass out to L.A. tomorrow morning. We got to lay this down in the big studio with the engineers and all the fancy equipment and everything. And so it all worked out. They loved the reference track that I sent. And we were able to get into the big studio, collab with a couple other artists, a couple engineers, and get it all together. And I’m just thankful that people like the song.”
“It’s such a different… sound for me personally. I’ve never done anything like this before,” Noah continued. “And a lot of people were like, ‘Bro, I didn’t even know you could sing like that. And I was like, well, yeah, I sing, but I wouldn’t call myself a singer. But because the song is resonating with people so well, maybe I got to add that to the title.”
It’s also a personal song for Noah, who featured a voice note from his late Uncle James on the track.
“The movie takes place in Mississippi. And my family has close ties to Mississippi. We have a bunch of family members from Mississippi. And my Uncle James, who’s featured on the record, is from Mississippi. And when they sent the production over, the thing that I noticed most is that is that it felt very bluesy. The production felt very bluesy. I wanted to run with that. I wanted to lean into that a lot.”
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“Me being a rapper, I knew that I wanted to provide something different. The song has rap elements to it, but it’s very much a blues, sing-songy song,” he added. “I wanted to pay my respects not only to the blues artists that came before me, but to my uncle. He was a massive blues fan, and he’s the one who introduced me to it. And so this was an opportunity to not only pay my respects to the artists that came before me, but to pay my respects to my uncle as well.”
The film, which is set in the Mississippi delta in the 1930s, tells the story of troubled twin brothers Smoke and Stack — played by Michael B. Jordan — who return to their Mississippi hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.
The song and soundtrack not only service the blues theme that runs through the star-studded film, which features the likes of Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku and others, but helps tell the bigger story of a film that is much more than a vampire thriller — it, as Noah says, tells a story of “Black liberation and Black ownership.”
“I don’t want to ruin the themes of the movie, but those are the themes that are visited throughout the film,” he said before touching on the success the soundtrack has already seen so far.
“I think it’s the blues. Blues music is — the way my ancestors would tell it to me, is like, blues music is like the music of the homeland. We brought it with us. We brought it with us to this place,” Noah added.
While Ludwig and Ryan are being praised for another musical collaboration, getting the chance to work with his brother again has been an “honor.”
“‘Ryan’s brother,’ my entire life. If you’re from the Bay, like, my brother been a ‘ghetto celebrity’ my entire life. So I’ve always been Coog’s little brother. And so this is just another one for the books,” he gushed when speaking about his older brother. “Anytime I get the opportunity to work with either of my brothers, like, it’s a dream come true. We’ve been creating for a long time, and I always tell people there are no handouts. I still have to go in and make quality music that is up to par. It’s not just a, ‘Hey, this is my brother. Let him on.’ I gotta go through the checks and balances like everybody else. And so it’s just good to know that A, I’m making good enough music that people want to hear it. And B, that it’s good enough to stand alone.”
“It’s such an honor being a part of these soundtracks. And it goes down in history. 10, 15, 20 years from now, when people watch these movies and listen to these soundtracks, that’s a piece of history there. That’s something that I can hang my hat on. So it’s just an honor. It’s an honor. It was an honor being Coop’s little brother when I was a kid. And it’s an honor being his brother now,” Noah added.
At the end of the day, for the Coogler brothers, hard work has been and continues to remain at the core of all they do. And while he called the long hours the “hardest” part of working with a perfectionist like his brother, it’s a through-line that can be seen amongst the longstanding collaboration they’ve formed over the years and the success that’s resulted, whether that be with Göransson or Jordan.
“When we got Mike locked in for Fruitvale Station, I looked at my brother and I was like, ‘Who’s Michael B. Jordan? Who is this?? And this is over a decade ago,” he recalled. “And now, long, lengthy career, bunch of projects together. Again, that falls under that umbrella of hard work. Mike is another one of the people that works hard. People don’t see it. I wish people really understood just how hard these people work. They only see the press tour photos and the vacation photos. They don’t see the long hours. That’s why Mike and Coog make so much money, make so many things together, because they understand each other and they both work hard.”
“If you surround yourself with people like that, you cannot lose. You will not lose,” he added. “Anytime I talk to people about it, like that’s the key. You got to surround yourself with people who want it as bad as you do, who want to work as hard as you do, and want to succeed as much as you do.”
Sinners is in theaters now, and the accompanying soundtrack for the film can be found on all music streaming platforms.
