Exclusive: Composer Kurt Farquhar On Scoring The Music For Black LightningPosted by Wilson Morales
August 14, 2018
Currently out from Warner Bros. Television, DC Entertainment and Berlanti Productions, the producers of the hit series The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, along with Akil Productions, is Black Lightning: The Complete First Season on Blu-ray and DVD. Black Lightning delivered the most-watched series premiere in the past two years and remains The CW’s second highest-rated show just behind The Flash. Fans that purchase the set will be able to watch all 13 electrifying episodes from the first season, supercharged with extra content including the 2017 Comic-Con panel, new featurettes, deleted scenes, gag reel and more. Black Lightning: The Complete First Season is also available to own on Digital via purchase from digital retailers.
Black Lightning follows Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams), a man wrestling with a secret. As the father of two daughters and principal of a charter high school that also serves as a safe haven for young people in a neighborhood overrun by gang violence, he is a hero to his community. Nine years ago, Pierce was a hero of a different sort. Gifted with the superhuman power to harness and control electricity, he used those powers to keep his hometown streets safe as the masked vigilante Black Lightning. Almost a decade later, Pierce’s crime-fighting days are long behind him…or so he thought. But with crime and corruption spreading like wildfire, and those he cares about in the crosshairs of the menacing local gang The One Hundred, Black Lightning returns — to save not only his family, but also the soul of his community.
Scoring the series is Kurt Farquhar, who has done more scores than ANYONE can imagine. According to his Wikipedia page, he is “a seven-time BMI award winner, including four for The King of Queens and one for The Game and two for Being Mary Jane. He is best known for composing the scores for The King of Queens, Girlfriends, Sister, Sister, Moesha, Being Mary Jane, The Game, Black Lightning, and Real Husbands of Hollywood. Farquhar’s career is notable for having scored more prime-time television series than any other African-American composer to date.”
Blackfilm.com caught up with Farquhar to discuss the music he’s done for the series.
You’ve done nearly 200 television series?
Kurt Farquhar: Yeah, yeah, I’ve done shows like King of Queens, Being Mary Jane, The Quad, there’s been quite a few of them. Sister Sister, a lot of comedies, some movies but his is my first superhero series.
You’ve worked with the Akils before, so coming on to this series what did they want you to do that’s different from what you’ve done before?
Kurt Farquhar: Everything was different about this, I’ve done every single series they’ve done from Girlfriends, to The Game, to Being Mary Jane. This one was very, very, different; the energy is so different, the scope of it is such a big, big show with a big sound and a very different sound. The characters that we’re are seeing here are gonna be very different from where we’ve seen before in this genre, and the music had to reflect that as well. We went really a long way out of our way to make sure that it was something different and special.
Do they tell you the scene? How do you work, are you about getting the script first, knowing what you’re going to do for the character, or you about seeing the scene first and then developing the score?
Kurt Farquhar: I like to read the scripts, my brother Ralph Farquhar is a writer and producer, and he used to be on Married With Children and Happy Days; and he created Moesha and The Parkers. I have a tendency to want to read the scripts first and then I sit there, I spend time with the showrunners and try to dig into where they want it to come from because ultimately we’re just trying to be in service to their vision, and see where they’re trying to come from. If they can write the music themselves, what would it be? I try to go from that standpoint and then bringing my own vision in as well. It’s bringing my experiences and my feelings to bear as well to the story.
Having composed different scores for all these different shows you’ve mentioned, and films, and I’ve interviewed other composers in the past, do you have a tendency, and I don’t know if you recognize it or not, where you tend or could repeat yourself? Anybody who’s a fan of your work can say, “Oh, he’s being lazy.” We’ve heard it before. Is it all original or is it more of a challenge to come up with something original?
Kurt Farquhar: It’s more fun to come up with something original. Every show that you do is different. I created a sound for King of Queens on the exact same day I did the Parker’s. You probably have heard of those two shows, and they couldn’t be remotely more different. They couldn’t be. I was doing Stitchers at the same time I was doing Being Mary Jane. If you can catch any, I mean any element that is the same in those shows, then you know something that I don’t know. I come from the standpoint of let the story that’s in front of me tell me which way to go, not the other way around. It’s not me saying okay, this is my thing and I’m gonna stick that now on your show. What is it that you guys are trying to achieve and go from there.
Working with the Akils, do they more or less leave you alone or do they know music themselves and tell you they want to add flair or not?
Kurt Farquhar: They’re very, very, very, very interested in music, they are very tied into the whole sound of every show. They have a vision for it, much more deeply than typical producers. They are very invested in music, that’s a big deal for them.
Have you seen the other DC shows on the CW to see if your music falls in line with what they have for those different shows?
Kurt Farquhar: I’ve seen the shows and I think that Blake Neely is giving a Master class on now how to do that all the time. That said, Black Lightning is a very different show and what we’re supposed to do is very different. Salim Akil’s vision right out the gate was, “How do we do this in another way?”
At some point or another, even though they haven’t stated it, Black Lightning may cross with some of those other shows. If so, is it a matter of composers working together so that elements of the music for each character is brought along with them?
Kurt Farquhar: In this point, they have said that we are not going to cross. I have never been given any marching orders that we are going to be crossing with the other shows in the Arrowverse. That doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. At this point we’re not necessarily preparing for that. It could happen and if it does I will have a great time working with Blake and seeing how we mix up the two sounds.
If anybody were watching the series for the first time with the Blu-ray out and season 2 on its way, if there’s any particular episode where your music stood out, which episode would it be?
Kurt Farquhar: Wow. Music sticks out in all of them, because it’s definitely different than the other shows that are out there. I loved episode 12, I think it was just fascinating. I think it was a real tour de force on numerous levels. There’s a 8-minute action sequence with score going throughout the whole thing for 8-minutes straight. It ran everything from EDM and Dubstep to Trap to orchestral scoring mixed with sound design. All of it happening at the same time, morphing in and out.
Of all the shows that you’ve done, and you’ve mentioned you’ve done all of the Akils, are we ever gonna get a compilation album?
Kurt Farquhar: That would be a great idea. I’ve actually been thinking about that recently. What it would be like to put together some of the things from a lot of my different shows and I could easily do one on just the Akil’s shows. With all the cool music that was in Girlfriends and the Game and Being Mary Jane. Oh my God, that was one of the really truly fascinating series, musically. That would be a lot of fun.
What does it mean to you to be a black composer for a lot of these black shows that people are familiar with?
Kurt Farquhar: It’s something that I take a lot of great pride in and I’m just excited to be able to get to work, to be the person that’s done the majority of more urban-skewing shows that have been out there. The thing that people sometimes don’t realize is that’s not the only thing I’ve done. Stitchers, I don’t think anybody would mix up as being an urban-skewing show anymore than they would King of Queens, but I do those as well. Mystically the shows didn’t implode. I’m having a good time with it. I appreciate everybody that gives me the opportunity to do my craft and be a part of their vision for putting out another show.
