HBO has hired a group of rappers and Latin Music artists to create raps about the hit show Game of Thrones, which will be starting its fourth season next month. While the show is already immensely popular, HBO is hoping that the move will help broaden the show’s audience to include more African Americans and Hispanics.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the pay-TV network has hired 10 artists to help produce a 10-song mixtape called Catch The Throne. It is set to be released online Friday. HBO declined to provide the financial details.
The artists participating on the mixtape include Wale, OutKast’s Big Boi, Common, Daddy Yankee and Bodega Bamz. Producers added extra sound effects and speeches from characters on the show.
“Our multicultural audiences are a very important part of our subscribers, and we don't want to take them for granted,” Lucinda Martinez, HBO's senior vice president for multicultural marketing, told the WSJ.
According to TheWrap, GoT actually has less of a multicultural audience than HBO’s programming overall. Nielsen numbers show that GoT’s season three audience was 9.2 percent Hispanic, 13.2 percent African-American and 76.6 white, while the overall HBO audience is 12.3 percent Hispanic, 16.8 percent black and 72.9 white. HBO said that these numbers don’t count HBO Go’s audience or other platforms.
GoT has worked with The Hold Steady and Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody in the past, performing “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” for the show.
GoT is based on George R.R. Martin’s novels and returns on April 6.