A vast array of artists from Giggs to Fela Kuti can be heard in the directorial debut from Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares.

By Patrick Cremona

Published: Wednesday, 17 January 2024 at 09:49 AM


Dystopian Netflix film The Kitchen – which is the feature directorial debut of Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares – includes an eclectic mix of songs, with artists from Giggs to Fela Kuti among those that can be heard on the soundtrack.

Ahead of the release, Tavares spoke exclusively to RadioTimes.com about putting that soundtrack together and how he wanted to draw on a diverse range of musical influences to help shape the “sonic aesthetic” of the film.

“I love that part of it,” he explained. “It starts really early. Like, if I look at my Spotify lists, I’ve got [playlists called], like, Kitchen, Kitchen New etc. Over the years, as your tastes change, they start to influence you when you’re writing.

“And it’s sort of like this thing that all sort of starts to come together […] and you eventually start to kind of find a sonic aesthetic, and the soundscape for your film, and then it becomes clear what should be and what shouldn’t be in and what’s it doing emotionally, how is it kind of driving and pushing the story?”

“It’s definitely a sort of process of elimination and starting pretty broad, and we had to sort of build the soundscape the same we did the world – in a sense, we were still trying to push for, like, this idea of layers and this idea of colours and this idea of building what’s there.

“So then you’ll see, like, a mix of influences that we have, whether it’s garage, drum and bass, grime, and some more sort of classically composed things.

“We all listen to a mix of those things, and so it’s just sort of bringing them together to serve the story.”

You can check out a full list of the songs that feature in The Kitchen below.

The Kitchen soundtrack

You can find the full list of songs featured in the soundtrack for The Kitchen below: