If you're going to listen to the I Am Not Your Negro soundtrack expecting a typical soundtrack ... don't. Like the movie itself, which is a documentary focusing on James Baldwin's insights on race relations, the soundtrack is anything but typical.
In reality it's just a compilation of the films background music. Heavy on the jazz and classical music throughout, it offers no words at all until track No. 16 "I Can't Be a Pessimist,"which I will discuss in further detail later. The other so called tracks are all very short and don't seem to contain the gravity I was expecting from a movie like I Am Not Your Negro.
At first, it seemed as if the music would reflect the names of the songs. The titular first track sounded like the looping music you hear on a DVD's main menu. The second track, "Demonstration," featured loud drums and french horns. The music invokes images of a street demonstration in which artists are playing this music for the extra change in your pocket. Next is the track "Witness" and it easily reminded me of Law & Order music. After "Witness," all of the tracks stop bearing any connection between the music and the title. In fact, the very next song, "Menace," sounds anything but menacing.
Not until the aforementioned "I Can't Be a Pessimist" is there another song whose music resembles its name. In it you can hear the voice of Baldwin as he is being interviewed.
"I'm terrified by the moral apathy, the dearth of heart, that is happening with the people in my country. These people have deluded themselves for so long that they really don't think I'm human. At least it's in their conduct not in what they say. Which means that they have become moral monsters" Baldwin says with a slow keyboard beat playing in the background.
After a pause he continues to say, "I can't be a pessimist, because I am alive. To be pessimist is to believe that human life is academic matter. So I am forced to be an optimist. Forced to believe that we can survive."
These poignant and thought provoking words from one of America's most prominent social critics lends the gravity that I expected to see from this soundtrack. Unfortunately, this track is the only one on the whole album which offers such. As a whole, the "I Am Not Your Negro" soundtrack is underwhelming and gives audiences no reason to purchase it let alone spend 30 minutes listening to it.