[THE MAIN EVENT]

UpRising: What is the difference between a composer and a music supervisor?

Derryck "Big Tank" Thornton: As a music composer, that's what I did on The Boondocks—I wrote all of the music, from the theme song to all the pianos in the background, just every stitch of music written that set the tone. As a supervisor, I'm also setting tone, but it's more with song than with music. So if it's a sex scene or a chase scene, you can do it both ways. You can put a song in that sounds like [Wu-Tang’s] "Bring da Ruckus." So one guy is articulating the scene through music and kind of making his own plate, and the other person is picking the song to make the emotion happen. They're both very creative jobs.

Because of streaming, viewers have the option to jump right into a show. Is it harder to make a show’s theme songs stick now than it was in the '70s and '80s?

never looked at it that way. But when we're creating a theme song, it does set the tone. People want to hear it. If you look on X or Twitter, after one of our shows aired, whether it be BMF or Ghost or Raising Kanan, or even back when I had The Boondocks—people remember those songs. It lets you know the show was coming. I think back to the old shows like Give Me a Break or Sanford and Son, any of those. As soon as you heard that song, you felt a certain way. 

How involved is 50 Cent when it comes to selecting the music for his universe?

50 still touches everything. He's definitely got his pulse on everything that has to do with the music of all the shows.

He’s got a natural ear for melody. Does that translate to these shows?

One-hundred percent. As a producer myself and working with somebody who's got as many platinum records and smashes as he does, I'm pretty much guaranteeing you that we're going to have great music every season because this is what we do every day. He and the showrunners all have impeccable ears.

From your work on My Wife & Kids to BMF, how has your process changed?

That was my first job composing ever. So I had to really just study it and learn how to compose. When you're a producer, you work in like four- or eight-bar phrases [or] sometimes two-bar phrases. So you hear the same repetitive things, and that's what music is. When you start getting into composition, it's very linear. So you're really learning how to make music on an emotion. So as the scene is doing something, you do something. My Wife & Kids was a sitcom, so it was more bumps and real quick little things. They get you in and take you out of commercials, bring you back from a commercial, things like that. But the process of scoring, I really started to get into it even more so with working with Stanley Clark on a movie and going to UCLA, taking composition courses. Becoming a supervisor was a completely different bag. Being a supervisor is more like being an A&R. You're really looking for songs and if you understand chord structure and things like that, you really want to accent the emotion of the scene.

You’ve said working on period pieces is more challenging. Why is that?

It has to be authentic. If we're doing a show from today, people make music for right now all the time. So it's easy. But if we said, "Hey, I want you to do a song for 1984," then we got to go back. The way I work, we have to go back and find the drums, sampler, a keyboard that they were using, the slang, the verbiage, the topics that they were talking about, because music has changed tremendously in the last 30 years. If you want it to sound right, you should use that equipment [from back then]. I'll even go back and find the producer and talk to them if they're still with us.

What producers have you spoken to when trying to score?

I speak to DJ Premier all the time about things that he was doing in the early '90s. On BMF, I spoke with AZ and got him to do a record that sounds like [Run-DMC’s] “Sucker MCs.” I wanted to get an early '90s rapper and have them cut a song to sound like [hip-hop’s Golden era]. He got into his bag.

When BMF migrates to Atlanta, there's a lot of Miami bass music that represent that time because ATL's hip-hop scene hadn't quite developed yet. What will be the soundbed for season four

The story that's going to be told is amazing. We cover a larger time span, so Atlanta music will be introduced. And we're going to touch some other places. We go to St. Louis and L.A., so we're going to touch sounds from different areas this season. You're going to get a plethora of music from different areas.

What was the sound of St. Louis at that time?

It was more musical. They used more live instrumentation than we did. New York was more sample-based and boom-bap. Detroit was digital techno. Atlanta was starting with the fast hi-hats. St. Louis was more musical and chill. They had their own twang to their music.

You use the phrase "right song, right scene" to represent the nirvana of scoring. What’s one scene that you didn’t create that hits those notes?

If you've ever watched the movie [Malcolm] X, there's a scene where Denzel [Washington] is walking and dealing with some things. The song “A Change is Gonna Come” [by Sam Cooke] plays. A woman tells him Jesus [will protect him], but he's just spinning. Every time I hear that song, I think of the scene.

What’s your G.O.A.T. score moment?

n this last season of Ghost when Mary was getting shot up and I played “Hail Mary” by Tupac. I knew it was going to go. I went back and forth with the showrunner and kept telling him, "This is the one!" We finish these shows about seven, eight months out. So when the episode aired, I watched it and went to bed afterwards, my normal thing. The next morning, by the time I woke up, I probably had 40 texts, like, “Dog, this is crazy. Have you looked on the internet?” I went on X and it was viral, it was trending. There's times when you get a feeling about something and you just know—the double entendre of "Hail Mary" and Mary J. Blige, the way it's edited—it really connected with the audience. This wasn't a big crescendo type of record for this scene, but it spoke to the emotion of it.

—Jermaine Hall

Extra: Tank will be helping retool a classic next. "I'm working with Debbie Allen right now on A Different World," he said. "We've already had several discussions about music. It's going to be crazy."

Watch the new season of Starz's BMF on June 6.

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[THE ENDORSEMENT]

Loud and Proud

This is not a drill—tomorrow marks the start of Pride Month. To help you celebrate, we’re presenting this 2025 culture pack with selections to make you think, dance, and simply live your best (and boldest) life.

READ: Isaac’s Song, Daniel Black

Award-winning author Daniel Black takes us back to Chicago in the late 1980s for his most recent novel—a story of a queer Black man sorting through racial and generational trauma on a quest for self-discovery after his father’s death. The coming-of-age hardcover is a companion work to Black’s 2022 book, Don’t Cry for Me, revising the story’s characters while offering a new perspective on its events.

ATTEND: Southern Fried Queer Pride Festival

Long known as the Black gay mecca, Atlanta waits until October to throw its biggest Pride events. But this weeklong annual June celebration stands on its own. Southern Fried Queer Pride is a grassroots organization devoted to uplifting Black queer and trans communities in the South. Its 11th annual festival, which takes place from June 23-29 in Atlanta’s Little 5 Points neighborhood, offers a wide range of programming, including dance parties, workshops, seminars, a variety show, film screening, thrift shop, pageant, and more.

LISTEN: Bloom, Durand Bernarr

Durand Bernarr had a viral moment back in 2023, when his lively, vibrant, and fun Tiny Desk performance became the talk of social media. But real ones know the Cleveland singer has been grinding for more than a decade (a 2010 Erykah Badu tribute project led to her hiring him as a background singer). His latest album, Bloom, is a musically eclectic celebration of platonic relationships that shows off his silky voice and unmatched range. If you’re sleeping on Durand Bernarr, let this be your sign to wake up and smell the flowers.

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[TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT]

I feel like being a bully is very popular right now. Having been on the wrong side of the rumor mill was incredibly eye-opening.

We’ve watched this Hollywood starlet grow up—and blow up—right before our eyes. But she’s not getting swept up in the hype, nor is she willing to be consumed by her success. Read more about a young superstar who refuses to bite her tongue in this in-depth cover story